Many views in the Press I disagree with, but few so much as Julian Sturdy’s on child poverty (York MPs speak out over child poverty figures, July 24).

He has no real response to the national scandal of child poverty that’s providing over 7,000 children here in York with the worst possible start in life.

Mr Sturdy’s efforts to defend the Government are tone deaf and disregard what more than a decade of austerity has done to our children, while he offers growing a high-wage economy as a panacea for all our ills.

This has always been a goal of all politicians and has it achieved anything in the past ten years for York? A higher-wage economy in, say, 2030 doesn’t address our children’s need to eat now, does it?

And I grow weary hearing about the so-called ‘something for nothing’ culture.

We are largely talking about people working full-time and often more for low pay, who are struggling to feed their children and heat their homes.

What a damning indictment on those governing that the number seeking emergency support from Trussell Trust food banks each year has risen from 26,000 in 2008 to 2.5 million last year.

What sort of a future do these children see before them? Regrettably, one of ruling politicians seemingly accepting poverty as a central feature of everyday life for millions of British people. Oh, how low we’ve sunk.

Cllr Janet Looker (Labour), Clifton Dale, York