Catholic MP attacks Oxfam for ‘partisan’ campaign

A CATHOLIC Conservative MP has accused Oxfam of politicising its charitable status over a poster supporting a report that 20 million meals were being provided by food banks.

The charity’s poster referred to a “perfect storm” caused by “zero-hours contracts, high prices, benefit cuts, unemployment and childcare costs”. Conor Burns, the MP for Bournemouth West, said it was “highly political and deeply misleading”.

Oxfam circulated the poster on Twitter to publicise “Below the Breadline”, a report it commissioned jointly with Church Action on Poverty and the Trussell Trust which run food banks. The Church in England and Wales’ social action agency, Caritas Social Action Network (Csan) supported the report, arguing that food poverty in Britain was becoming a chronic problem.

Mr Burns claimed the poster was misleading because there was no mention of childcare costs in the report. He has asked the Charity Commission to investigate whether the comments breached Oxfam’s charitable status of political neutrality.

He is one of a number of Conservative MPs who have protested at a Twitter and email campaign launched by Oxfam in its efforts to persuade the Government to address the growing food poverty crisis.

Mr Burns said: “I do think that people who donate money to Oxfam do so in the assumption that all their money is going to alleviating the plight of the world’s poorest and not some of it going on partisan and political campaigns, which is why I have asked the Charity Commission to have a look at it.”

Ben Phillips, Oxfam’s campaigns and policy director, said it was a “resolutely non-party political organisation” and that the charity had a responsibility to draw attention to the hardship suffered by the poor.

“Fighting poverty should not be a party political issue,” he added. “Successive governments have presided over a tide of rising inequality and created a situation where food banks and other providers provided 20 million meals last year to people who could not afford to feed themselves.”