Cooking lessons are not the “complete solution” to people struggling to afford to eat, a minister has said, after a Tory MP was widely condemned for suggesting poor people “can’t cook”.
Conservative Lee Anderson told the Commons there was “not this massive use for food banks”.
“You’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget,” he said.
Speaking to Sky News on Thursday morning, prisons minister Victoria Atkins said that was “absolutely not right”.
“This is not the view of me or anyone else in government. We want to give not just immediate help but longer-term support as well,” she said.
“I’ve spent my ministerial career working with very vulnerable people … cooking lessons will not be the complete solution to that.”
Anderson has defended his comments, arguing they have been misinterpreted.
“I did not say poor people cannot cook or there is no need for food banks. I said there is not the need currently being parrotted out by the MSM [mainstream media],” he wrote on Facebook.
“Today I challenged the whole Parliamentary Labour Party to come to Ashfield to visit the food bank I work with. The give food parcels away on the condition the enrole for cooking and budgeting lessons.”
Labour branded Anderson’s remarks “beyond belief”, the Lib Dems described them as “disgraceful” and the SNP said they were “crass”.
The Child Poverty Action Group claimed politicians “would do better to back real-world solutions, like bringing benefits in line with inflation this autumn”.
While the Trussell Trust charity insisted “cooking meals from scratch won’t help families keep the lights on or put food on the table, if they don’t have enough money in their pockets”.