Brown Issued Stark Poverty Warning: "Levels I Thought We'd Eliminated For Good"

London, UK - Former Chancellor Gordon Brown has delivered a stark warning about the resurgence of poverty in the UK, stating that current levels of child poverty are the worst seen in "50 or 60 years". His comments come as the nation grapples with a cost-of-living crisis that has disproportionately impacted low-income families, and Rochdale is seeing some of the worst effects of poverty.

Brown, who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1997 following Labour's landslide victory that year, expressed deep concern at the return of poverty he believed had been consigned to history. "In the last few years, we’re seeing poverty I never thought I’d see again", he said in a recent interview. "When we came into power in 1997 it was poverty amongst pensioners and we had to do something about it. Then we turned attention to trying to relieve child poverty and we’re now back to levels of child poverty that we haven’t seen for 50 or 60 years".

Brown drew parallels to his own upbringing in a community facing economic hardship. "I lived in a community when I was growing up that had slum housing, we had a lot of travelling people, a lot of redundancies in the coal and textile industries", he explained, and continued, "....and now we’re seeing the kind of poverty I thought we had eliminated for good. So we have got to do something about it".

In 1997, Tony Blair's Labour government, swept into power with a historic 179-seat majority and the largest swing to a political party since 1945, and prioritised tackling poverty. Brown played a key role in implementing policies aimed at alleviating pensioner and child poverty during his decade as Chancellor, and was succeeded as chancellor by Alistair Darling during the time of the famous credit crunch.

Now, decades on from New Labour in the 1990s, Brown is calling for urgent action to address the current crisis. In particular, he has suggested that the Government should reconsider the two-child benefit cap, arguing that it is a policy trapping families in poverty. The two-child limit prevents families from claiming child benefit or the child element of universal credit for additional children born after April 2017, if the child is the third or subsequent child.

Brown's intervention adds to the growing pressure on the government to address rising poverty levels. His comments, delivered towards the eve of the new year, 2024, serve as a powerful reminder of the challenges faced by vulnerable families across the UK and a call for a renewed commitment to tackling poverty.