Tory peer forced to eat her words after claiming poor people can’t cook

Source: Guardian

Tory peer forced to eat her words after claiming poor people can’t cook

Lady Jenkin’s remarks overshadow launch of report examining rapid rise in numbers of Britons who are reliant on food banks

Patrick Butler, Patrick Wintour and Amelia Gentleman
Monday 8 December 2014 17.43 EST

Attempts to establish a political consensus on how to tackle the growing problem of hunger in Britain came under strain on Monday as a Conservative who helped launch a cross-party report on the issue declared that one of the principal causes of food poverty was that “poor people do not know how to cook”.

Lady Jenkin’s comments – for which she later apologised – came at the Westminster launch of Feeding Britain, a Church of England-funded report examining the causes of the rapid rise in the numbers of people becoming reliant on food banks.

The peer told the press conference, which was attended by the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, that low-income people who used food banks did so in part because they were not skilled enough in cooking and food management.

Her words were in marked contrast to the conclusions of the cross-party report, which says structural issues such as benefit delays and cuts, coupled with low wages and rising living costs, are predominantly to blame for tens of thousands of families experiencing hunger.

“We have lost a lot of our cookery skills. Poor people do not know how to cook,” Jenkin said. “I had a large bowl of porridge today, which cost 4p. A large bowl of sugary cereals will cost you 25p.”






Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/dec/08/poor-cannot-cook-peer-eats-words