Dodds: Only well-off can afford family under Tories

ONLY ‘better-off’ people can afford to start a family or have more children because of the rising cost of living under the Conservatives, Labour’s shadow women and equalities secretary claims.

Anneliese Dodds said: ‘There is evidence quite a lot of people are putting off “settling down” because of cost pressures.

‘They’re feeling they’re not able to start having a family because of those cost pressures. They don’t know if they’re going to be in the same accommodation for a longer period, or they’re putting off having other children.

‘That is a phenomenon that is really quite disturbing if we think through the implications, that actually it’s only those better-off people who would be able to have either a family at the age they would want to have it at or the number of children they themselves would want to have.’

The party chair told a conference fringe meeting struggling and being in debt was ‘a feature of life’ for many families before the pandemic.

But Covid had worsened it through rising private rents, a lack of social housing, the cost of childcare and utilities, the cut to the Universal Credit uplift, and the rise in National Insurance.

She said: ‘My problem with the current situation is the structural factors driving what is essentially a gap between people’s incomes and their outgoings are not being grasped. ‘We’re seeing a number of measures, choices made by government, that will make that worse.’

And she said ministers needed to stop framing Universal Credit as a benefit only for those out of work. Ms Dodds (pictured) said: ‘We need to recognise many people will need support from social security.’