Home secretary condemned as ‘out of touch’ after appearing to pass buck on to local authorities

The government is not responsible for poverty in the UK, the home secretary has said.

Priti Patel attempted to absolve “people in Westminster” from blame over deprivation across the country and instead highlighted the role of local authorities and education services – which receive the bulk of their funding from central government.

“Well it’s appalling, and of course, but everybody – and it’s not just people in Westminster – it’s not just at a national level, it’s at a local level,” she said during a campaign visit to Barrow-in-Furness, in Cumbria, when questioned about how two in five children in some local areas were born into poverty.

Challenged that the government was responsible for poverty and the Tories had had almost 10 years to address the issue, Patel replied: “It’s not the government, though, is it? Everybody just says ‘the government’ as if it is this sort of bland blob that, you know, you can just go and blame.”

Pressed further, she added: “Actually, it’s, well, it’s not [the government’s fault], because it’s all parts of society and the structures. Local authorities have a role to play, education, public services, which are locally led and locally run.”

BBC North West (@BBCNWT) Just to clarify...The text on the original Tweet paraphrased the comments in the video. For clarity, we have removed the quotation marks and reposted the video https://t.co/mkm31XTS6U

The former tobacco industry lobbyist’s comments where condemned by Labour. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, tweeted: “Priti Patel’s claims in this video are yet another example of the Tory government’s cruelty. Local government has suffered enormously from vicious Tory cuts. Of course we can blame the Tory government for poverty.”

Labour’s candidate for the marginal Barrow and Furness seat, Chris Altree, tweeted: “More than a quarter of children in Barrow are living in poverty and that situation is directly ascribable to benefit cuts that have been imposed by this Conservative government.

“Many people in our communities are working poor and the comments from Priti Patel show just how out of touch the Conservatives are with working people.”

The clip of Patel’s remark was originally posted by the BBC North West Twitter account on Wednesday afternoon, but appeared to have been taken down until it was reposted on Thursday morning.

A report released in May found that more than a quarter of children in some parts of Cumbria were living in poverty, with families facing the choice between paying bills or buying food. The origin of the two-in-five figure being cited remains unclear.

Council spending on local services has fallen by more than a fifth since 2010 amid deep cuts from central government, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a leading economics thinktank, and deprived northern areas have been worst hit.

More than 4 million people in the UK are trapped in deep poverty, according to the Social Metrics Commission (SMC). Their income is at least 50% below the breadline and they struggle to afford basic living essentials, the SMC study showed.

Reliance on food banks has grown in recent years after multibillion pound cuts to the welfare budget and a freeze on benefits rises.

The United Nations poverty envoy said during a visit to the UK last year that the government had imposed “great misery” on people in the country with “punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous” austerity policies.