Harry Potter author criticises 'skivers v strivers' rhetoric and calls on coalition to help people into work instead of imposing cuts
JK Rowling – a struggling single mother when she wrote the first Harry Potter book – called for investment to help single parents work their way out of poverty. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
JK Rowling has said the government is out of touch with poor people and should focus on helping them into work rather than stigmatising them and hitting them with more cuts.
Writing in her role as president of the single parent support group Gingerbread, the Harry Potter author criticised the coalition's welfare reforms and the characterisation of people as either strivers or skivers.
"The government mantra that work is the best route out of poverty is ringing increasingly hollow, with nearly one in three children whose single parent works part-time still growing up in poverty," she said. "Rather than focusing on ever more austerity measures, it's investment in single parent employment that will allow single parents to work their own way out of poverty and secure real savings from the welfare bill."
The attack by Rowling comes almost five years to the day that she donated £1m to Labour on the eve of its 2008 annual conference, criticising the Tory message that "a childless, dual-income, but married couple is more deserving of a financial pat on the head than those struggling, as I once was, to keep their families afloat in difficult times". It follows the announcement that the Tories will unveil plans for a tax break for married couples in this year's autumn statement.
The award-winning author was herself a single mother struggling to make ends meet when she wrote the first of her best-selling books in the 1990s. She said that her self-esteem was tested at the time and that single parents were still being stigmatised.
"I find the language of 'skivers versus strivers' particularly offensive when it comes to single parents, who are already working around the clock to care for their children," she wrote on the Gingerbread website. "Such rhetoric drains confidence and self-esteem from those who desperately want, as I did, to get back into the job market."
Office for National Statistics figures show that 59% of single parents in the UK are already in work. Gingerbread says the government could save £436m a year by getting just 5% more into employment.
Rowling wrote that to help single parents back into work, the government should focus on affordable childcare and training, make employers embrace flexible hours and take "a long, hard look at low pay".
Referring to a comment by the welfare minister and former investment banker Lord Freud last year that "people who are poorer should be prepared to take the biggest risks – they've got least to lose", Rowling wrote that it showed "a profound disconnect with people struggling to keep their heads above water".
She said more single parent families would lose than gain under the government's flagship universal credit payment, including many in work, because of gaps in childcare provision for many of the poorest families and a loss of support for single parents under 25.
The current benefits system takes into account whether you have a child in determining your personal allowance but under the reforms a single parent under 25 will receive the same rate of allowance as an under-25 without any children.
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