Exclusive: Greens Hit Out At Reform 'Frauds' After Zia Yusuf Suggests Poverty Rates Are Exaggerated

The Green Party has slammed Reform UK for letting the “cat out of the bag” after Zia Yusuf suggested poverty rates in Britain are misleading.

Reform’s head of policy got into a spat with Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday over his party’s plans to keep the two-child benefit cap while cutting business rates for pubs.

“Reform’s policy is to let children go hungry so their parents can get in an extra round?” Phillips asked.

Yusuf replied: “Nigel’s position always has been and still is that he would lift the two-child benefit cap only for British families who are in work.”

He then added: “When the term poverty is used, primarily by left-wing politicians, it’s a relative term which means you could literally – this is a mathematical fact – increase everyone’s incomes tenfold and the statistics would stay the same.”

Phillips asked if Yusuf was trying to say poverty levels are an “illusion”.

The Reform politician replied: “No, it’s worse than that because real poverty does exist in this country, Trevor.

“Absolute poverty does exist in small pockets, if you want to do the right thing in this country, you need to create social mobility. 

“There will always be a percentage of the public who are ‘in poverty’, and what that does nothing for is to help the middle classes or indeed the people who live in absolute poverty.”

Yusuf then claimed there are “very, very small pockets” of poverty in Wales.

He said: “The measure of poverty which has been used for years in this country is an unhelpful thing because it is relative to the mean and the median, it means you are always going to have a percentage of people who are there and that is not in the interest of people who need it.” 

More than 3.8 million people experienced destitution in 2022 including a million children, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

A Green Party spokesperson tore into Yusuf’s comments, telling HuffPost UK: “Reform have totally let the cat out of the bag this morning about what they really stand for.

“Zia Yusuf, a multi-millionaire, lecturing that poverty and people’s everyday struggles with rising bills and rent is exaggerated, shows what frauds Reform are.

“They are just another party of the failed status quo, funded by and representing big corporate interests. 

“The Gorton and Denton by election is between the Greens and Reform.

“We are campaigning for lower bills and protecting public services by taxing millionaires and billionaires. Reform stand for the wealthy few.”

Reform, the Greens and Labour are all battling it out to win the crunch contest in Greater Manchester later this month, in the hope of securing another MP in the Commons.