Poor families more resourceful in past, says top Tory Lee Anderson

People struggling with living costs were "more resourceful" in previous decades, the Tory deputy chairman has said.

Lee Anderson told the BBC there was a "different culture" in his youth, and people were more likely to take on extra work.

The MP - who grew up in a mining town - has faced criticism for previously questioning the need for food banks.

Recalling his childhood, he said "our garden was our foodbank".

He said his parents had "made do" in the 1970s, despite growing up in an environment that people today would see as "very, very, poor".

But speaking to the BBC's Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast, he said: "We didn't think we were in poverty.

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"Things were more expensive I think back in the Seventies. Food was definitely more expensive, relatively speaking," he told the podcast.

"We had one holiday a year, which was a caravan in Skegness. We had a garden full of vegetables, [with] chickens at the bottom for the eggs.

"Perhaps if some people today could go back in a time machine and see how we lived, they'd think we were very, very, poor. But I didn't see that at the time."

When challenged that people some parts of the country today would not have a garden to grow vegetables in, he replied: "The point I was making was people were more resourceful when I was growing up as a child.

"They were more resourceful. My parents were the children of men that had fought in the war, they'd gone through very, very difficult times.

"So it was a different culture, there was a different outlook on life. And they made do.

"My dad always said to me - if you need more money, go and work a weekend shift, do a bit of overtime. It wasn't 'complain on Facebook or Twitter or go and do a TikTok video or just complain to government'."

Political opponents of the Tory deputy chairman have tried to use his ability to hit headlines against him

Mr Anderson, who grew up in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, a former mining area which he now represents as MP, was appointed deputy Tory chairman by Rishi Sunak last month.

Since then he has found himself at the centre of media storms for his outspoken views on issues such as migrant Channel crossings, his support for the death penalty, and the use of food banks.

Before his appointment, he was branded "out of touch" last year for suggesting people needed to learn how to cook and budget "properly", rather than use food banks.

He later defended his comments, saying he was glad to have started a "debate" on the issue.

In his interview with Nick Robinson, he said anyone earning an annual salary of £35,000 "should not be using a food bank" when asked about a row over whether nurses had used the resource.

He said that whenever he talked about the issue, his inbox was flooded with people making supportive comments "saying 'you know what Lee, thank goodness somebody is speaking out, we actually agree with you'".

Pressed on whether higher housing costs in places like Barking, a London borough, could lead people on this income to use a food bank, he replied: "Where are they?"

"I get pensioners contacting me from southern constituencies who are on peanuts, there's on less than twenty grand a year, they're not using foodbanks."

'Mr Scrooge'

At a parliamentary debate following his interview, Mr Anderson went on to say food banks were "being abused," with some families treating them "like a weekly shop".

He said there was a need for more education, to help families struggling with food costs to cook cheaper meals.

His comments earned him a rebuke from Labour MP Fleur Anderson, who accused him of making "provocative statements completely detached from the facts".

"There's a reason for [the] huge increase in needing to go to foodbanks, and that is because the system is entirely broken, and that is after 13 years of the Conservatives breaking that system," she added.

There was also criticism from the SNP's Patricia Gibson, who said food bank use was increasing because of rising prices, and compared Mr Anderson to "Mr Scrooge without the compassion".

She accused him of trying to "lecture" people who were struggling with living costs, branding it "staggeringly insensitive".