PMQs: Johnson should extend 'crony generosity' to those living in poverty

The Cumbernauld MP said: "Before the budget is finalised could the Prime Minister ensure that the Chancellor reads the Trussell Trust's new report 'Dignity or destitution: The case for keeping the Universal Credit Lifeline'?

"His Government has been incredibly generous to pals with PPE contracts.

"Surely instead of cutting employment-related benefits to the lowest real-terms level in 30 years, he must now afford some basic dignity to the six million people on Universal Credit and make the uplift permanent?"

The Prime Minister gave no guarantees that the benefit rise would be maintained in the March 3 Budget, but added: "We will continue to look after people throughout this pandemic and beyond. The best thing we can do across the whole of the country is to bounce our economy back and get people into high quality jobs." 

Mr McDonald was not the only one to lampoon Mr Johnson over the recent cases of contracts being handed to companies with links to the Conservatives.

Leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer, in urging the UK Government to extend the £500 self-isolation payment to everyone who needed it, said: "If you need £500 to isolate, you’re out of luck. If you’ve got the Health Secretary’s Whatsapp, you get a million-pound contract." 

He said that 30 per cent of people "who should be self-isolating aren’t doing so." and added: "That matters to millions of people and it matters if we’re going to get the virus under control.

“The chair of Test and Trace said that people are scared to come forward for a Covid test because they can’t afford to isolate – that was the chair of Test and Trace – can’t afford it.

“The Government’s biosecurity centre concluded that unmet financial need was why some lower income areas are seeing stubbornly high infection rates. So why, after all the billions the Government has thrown around, is it still people in low-paid jobs who are at the bottom of this Government’s priorities?”

READ MORE: Crony row: Matt Hancock's department acted illegally by failing to publish contract details

Boris Johnson responded: “Actually, I think most people looking at what we’ve done throughout this pandemic, looking at the support, the £280 billion package of support, can see that it is the poorest and the neediest in society, those who are on the lowest income who have been the top of the Government’s priorities and that is quite right."

The SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford called for the PM to “rule out a return to Tory austerity cuts” however Mr Johnson responded by criticising the Scottish Government's spending and said: "It’s very sad to see some of the failures in education policy in Scotland, the failures in their criminal justice policy and fighting crime and I think what the people of the whole UK would like to see, and I believe the people of Scotland, is less talk about a referendum which is his agenda, and more talk about the real issues facing our country.”

Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, called for the TeamGB to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing over the human rights abuses towards the Uighur Muslim population.

Mr Johnson said that while Mr Davey was right to "highlight the appalling campaign against the Uighurs in Xinjiang", the Government was "not normally in favour of sporting boycotts in this country and that’s been the long-standing position of this Government.”