23 February 2024 , 08:30
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A teacher in the BBC Question Time audience has described her heartbreak that families can't afford to send their children on school trips.
The woman told MPs and experts on the panel her school is offering fewer trips because families don't have the spare cash to send their children on them. She was speaking as the show debated whether Britain - which slipped into a recession at the end of last year - is "in decline or on the rise".
The woman pleaded with panellists as she said: "I'm a teacher and I saw lots of families in the local community and I see the decline in trips and enrichment that we can give the children because families can't afford it.
"But on the opposite, I see the incline of the wonderful staff team that we have across the borough - it's not just in my school, it's in lots of schools - getting together and really helping the families. When we were in the first lockdown for instance, one of my teaching assistants went out on Easter Sunday as an Easter Bunny and gave easter eggs to our most vulnerable families. So in the last four years, we really have coming together as a team and that's a that's been a real positive but it's on that negative."
Labour’s Stella Creasy responded to her: "It's amazing what you do but it shouldn't be an either or. We shouldn't have food banks like a normal thing in a modern society."
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Conservative Minister Laura Farris admitted we'd been "through some pretty hard times", as she listed the pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the energy crisis, rising inflation and the conflict in the Middle East. When she said "we are turning a corner", presenter Fiona Bruce hit back: "I mean we're in recession but you think we're turning a corner?" The audience chuckled in response.
Ms Farris continued: "You don't have to take my you don't have to take my word for it. Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, appeared before the Treasury Select Committee this week, so that's politically cross party and he's politically neutral... He thought there were definite signs of an upturn. The IMF has projected that the growth of the United Kingdom will outstrip Germany, France, Italy, Japan, it will come third in the G7."
Ms Bruce hit back: "Hang on, the stats I've got, maybe I've got this wrong, forgive me if I have, the latest IMF stats predict the UK to have the second weakest level of growth in the G7 next year only ahead of Germany, but I got that wrong." Ms Farris clarified she was looking at forecasts up to 2028 - and Ms Bruce responded saying "a lot can happen" between now and then.
Sociologist Jason Arday said the public is questioning whether MPs in the Chamber have a "sense of urgency" about the cost of living crisis, as people are having to choose between "heating or eating". Asked whether Britain was in decline or on the rise, he said: "It's difficult. I don't know if it's as binary as that. I mean, what I do know is that I think people are suffering at an unprecedented level.
"If parliamentary discourse is the tune that we all dance to, unfortunately hasn't played the right tunes for the best part of 14 years. So I think a lot of people are struggling. People are living below the bread line. People are having to make conscious decisions between heating or eating. And sometimes there is this feeling, is this replicated - do people feel this sense of urgency in the chamber?
"Do people have that sense of empathy, that sense of people are really suffering at the moment? And actually what we are residing in is this broken Britain, which has kind of played out in this kind of comedy politics we've seen over the last decade or more. So I think we are in decline. But that's not to say that there aren't very conscious parliamentarians that are not doing their level best to try and make things better, but I think we have some ways to go before we get to where we need to be because the level of suffering I certainly haven't seen it in my lifetime. And I think there are many people in the UK who haven't experienced the level of deprivation that they're currently experiencing now."