MPS have no idea about poverty I grew up in – or how to get people out of it

Children who grow up in poverty often don’t realise just how hard their lives are because, at the time, it seems normal to them. They haven’t known anything different so wearing second-hand clothes, sleeping in a house with damp running down the walls and surviving on dry cornflakes or slices of cheap bread is just how it is.

It’s only in hindsight that they realise they were poor.

I know because I grew up in poverty. And when I look back on old family photos now, I feel like crying.

My mum got married the day before her 21st birthday.

By the time she was 28, she had six children and no husband.

My dad left shortly after my youngest brother was born, having decided that family life wasn’t for him, after all. We never saw him again.

And so my mum, barely out of childhood herself, brought up six children alone.

With no-one to look after us, it was impossible for her to get a job.

So she performed the miracle of raising us on government benefits.

We lived in a council house on a rundown estate in one of the most impoverished areas in Scotland.

But you know what?

I had an amazing childhood, surrounded by love and fun and happiness.

We may not have had much in material terms but we survived, even thrived.

Looking back at those old family photos, though, and the tumble of skinny limbs in second-hand clothes, I see six children who were probably malnourished.

Decades after those photos were taken, I was elected as a councillor for that same area I’d grown up in.

It was still ranking as SIMD2 in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, and I went into the job determined to make things better for the many children still living in poverty.

I thought things would have improved since I’d been a child.

But to my dismay, I discovered they had got worse.

As a councillor, I worked closely with local schools, and heard about breakfast clubs and soup kitchens, about free uniform exchanges and additional learning support for those in need.

One primary school head teacher told me about disruptive behaviour in class from pupils on a Friday afternoon.

I suggested it was perhaps because they were excited about the weekend.

She said, sadly, it was because many of the children knew they wouldn’t eat again until they were back in school on Monday, so they got anxious and panicky as the hours counted down.

I learned that many children in these schools missed out on things other families take for granted – visits to the swimming pool, days out – and so helped apply for funding that allowed one school to take every single pupil to the local pool.

Many of them had never been to a public pool before and arrived without towels or toiletries.

One class teacher, helping the P1s get dressed afterwards, found some of them had no socks or vests or even shirts to put on.

They had dressed themselves as best they could that morning, wearing whatever they could find in the house.

So, what’s my point?

Well, it may be a simplistic view, but I believe that unless you have some real-life experience of poverty, have felt yourself trapped in its clutches, then you may not have the necessary empathy for people who are still down in the depths.

That’s why politicians brought up with privilege, who were privately educated and who have never known hardship, are not the right people to offer advice on tightening our belts or shopping from supermarkets’ value ranges.

You can bet your life that they’ve never done it.

Look at the current Westminster government.

Many of them are so wealthy that the £84,000 MP’S salary represents petty cash to them.

Then think about the huge wealth gap that exists in this country.

Often, the decisions that impact most on those in poverty are being made by people who have never had to put on extra clothes indoors instead of the heating.

People who never made do with beans on toast as their main meal.

There’s a lack of empathy there, a lack of understanding and, quite frankly, a lack of care.

But know that as long as we have billionaires frittering away their fortunes by sending rockets into space, or buying social media companies or football clubs rather than doing something about global poverty, then we will never improve things for future generations.

Ironically, research shows the biggest donors to charity tend to be those who have the least to give.

Perhaps that is because they know what it’s like to struggle.

And so if I want any advice about how to stretch my household budget or

make ends meet, I will ask the amazing woman who managed to raise six kids on a pittance, not the arrogant, pompous millionaires currently running this country.

Some of them had no socks or vests or even shirts to put on

REAL-LIFE EXPERIENCE: Marie and her family knew all about tough struggles when they were growing up but were still happy.