BORIS Johnson told MPs he didn’t believe “that any government could have done more” to help the UK’s poorest people during pandemic.

The comment came in the Commons yesterday, as the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford urged the Prime Minister to make permanent the £20 a week uplift to Universal Credit.

There is a split in the Cabinet over the boost to the benefit brought in last April at the start of the pandemic.

It’s due to end at the end of next month, but it’s likely Rishi Sunak will announce an extension when he delivers his budget on March 3.

Johnson and his Chancellor want to extend the £20-a-week uplift for six months.

However, Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey and a significant number of his backbenchers want to keep it for a year at least.

Sunak had originally proposed a £500 one-off upfront payment for benefit claimants, which was rejected by Downing Street.

Raising the issue at PMQs, Blackford pointed to research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the baby bank charity Little Village which suggested 1.3 million children under five in the UK are living in poverty.

He said: “This is a truly shocking figure that should make this Tory Government utterly ashamed.

“The Scottish National Party has repeatedly called for a financial package to boost household incomes and reverse this Tory child poverty crisis.

“The Prime Minister has the power to tackle child poverty right now by making the £20 uplift to Universal Credit permanent and by extending it to legacy benefits.”

He asked Johnson if he would “finally act, or will he leave millions of children out in the cold?”.

The Tory leader said the Government would continue to put its “arms around” the people of the UK during the pandemic.

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He told MPs: “I think that the whole House and this country should be proud of the way we’ve tried to look after people, the poorest and neediest families, throughout the country.

“Not just with Universal Credit, which the party opposite would actually abolish, but by helping vulnerable people with their food and their heating bills, the £170 million Winter Grant Scheme, looking after people with the free school meal vouchers.

“And as I’ve said before, we will put our arms around the people of this entire country throughout the pandemic.”

Blackford called the response “pathetic”.

He said: “Let me quote: ‘She cried on her doorstep because I gave her nappies, wipes and winter clothes for her child. I went away with a lump in my throat.’

“These are the words of Emily, a baby bank worker who’s supporting families that the Tories have pushed into poverty through a decade of cuts. They don’t need more empty words from a Prime Minister who simply doesn’t care enough to act.

“This morning a new report from Citizens Advice Scotland warned that Tory cuts could reduce the value of Universal Credit by as much as a quarter, just when people need this money the most.”

He asked Johnson to join an urgent summit on tackling child poverty, rather than be “yet another Tory prime minister who leaves a generation of children languishing in poverty”.

Johnson responded: “I must say that I reject entirely what [Blackford] has just said because I don’t believe that any government could have done more to help the people of this country throughout this pandemic and we will continue to do so.

“And yes, of course, we bitterly, bitterly lament and reject the poverty that some families unquestionably suffer.

“It is tragic that too many families have had a very, very tough time during this pandemic, but we will continue to support them in all the ways we have set out.”

Last week Johnson told his MPs that extending universal credit for a year would cost £6 billion and be the equivalent of increasing income tax by 1% for 30 million taxpayers.