Child neglect is not poverty

I WAS shocked to read that in my home town of Dundee, more than a quarter of school children are now living in poverty. Shocked because I simply don’t believe it.

the Child Poverty Action Group claims that in some areas of the city, things are so bad that the proportion rises to 36 per cent. teachers are ‘having to give’ pupils fruit and cereal bars at break time because they haven’t even had a glass of water and are ‘too hungry to learn’.

What? I’m sorry, but if children are coming to school without breakfast, then that is child neglect, it is not child poverty.

Dundee has always been a gritty, working-class city, but have things really become so bad that the parents of thousands of children honestly cannot afford to feed them? A 2kg bag of tesco’s Scottish porridge oats costs just over £2: that would make 40 bowls of porridge. Four pints of milk is £1.10. A loaf of bread, a jar of jam, a box of Weetabix, a banana — how hard can it be? Is it really beyond the pockets of parents?

Of course, there is genuine hardship. A lack of wage rises means that pay packets are failing to keep pace with growing inflation.

Dundee City Council has been urged to find ways to help hard-pressed families cope with the cost of sending children to school. What? It is free. the buses are free, the school dinners are free (until the age of 16 for those families claiming benefits) and the education is free.

I do sympathise with those who struggle. But in Dundee, and elsewhere in the uK, one has to wonder about the parameters of poverty used to judge these situations.

Not to mention the politicised culture that slyly encourages people to think of themselves as victims.