In the UK 14.5 million people live in poverty, their numbers rising fast under Covid. Most of their MPs have never experienced serious financial hardship and have little understanding what it's like to live in poverty. MPs regularly dismiss those living in poverty as only having themselves to blame, or shame them as irresponsible and undeserving scroungers. It was the Government's refusal to back the motion to offer free school meals during holidays until Easter 2021, proposed in the wake of Marcus Rashford’s campaign to end child food poverty, and some MPs' reactions that prompted us to start this petition for a mandatory #Stopstigmatisingpoverty 1-week training programme for all newly elected and sitting MPs.

322 MPs voted to defeat the motion either because they thought there is nothing wrong with children going to bed hungry or because they valued their jobs more than their moral duty to prevent this from happening. Only five Tory MPs voted against their leader’s orders. One Conservative MP defended his decision to vote against the motion with "we need to get back to the idea of taking responsibility…This means less celebrity virtue signalling on Twitter by proxy and more action to tackle the real causes of child poverty." One of those standing accused of virtue signalling presumably is @MarcusRashford who not only singlehandedly has done more to tackle child poverty than the entire government but who in an ironic twist was nominated for his recently awarded MBE by none other than Boris Johnson. Another Tory MP in defending his vote implied that parents cannot be trusted not to swap the £15 weekly food vouchers for drugs. Once again MPs were willing to denigrate families living in poverty and stereotype them as irresponsible or even criminals in order to cover their own backs as the country responded with outrage to the vote in Parliament.   

In 2003, Michael Portillo swapped Westminster for life as a single working parent for BBC TV series 'My week in the real world'. He showed how much MPs can learn about life on the breadline. Let us stop relying on occasional TV programmes to help MPs understand what life in the real world is like for a quarter of the population and instead help them on this path through a mandatory training programme for MPs. Let us stop MPs shaming people living in poverty and blaming them for their misfortunes. Let us try to make the UK a kinder, fairer and more equal nation.

We call on the UK Government to introduce mandatory #Stopstigmatisingpoverty training for all newly elected and sitting MPs. The training will consist of 1 week spent living in social housing in their constituency on the equivalent of universal credit. During the week members of the local constituency will lay on a programme of events to allow their MP an insight into some of the diverse concerns and stresses their constituents face, with a focus on those living in poverty. 

We are a group of scientists who conduct research on stigma at University College London, one of the world's leading universities. We know from research what devastating consequences poverty stigma has on those affected. Hence we ask for your help to stop decision makers from engaging in stigmatising those less fortunate.

Our Blog post gives more details about this petition, the science behind it, and why it is being posted now. 

@uclusresearch             #Stopstigmatisingpoverty