A preschool age child playing with plastic building blocks, January 24, 2016
CHILD poverty hit a record high as only the top earners were better off last year, official figures revealed today.
Campaigners said youngsters were being forgotten as the statistics showed food insecurity soared by 53 per cent, 100,000 more working households fell below the poverty line and more pensioners were unable to afford basic goods such as food and heating.
The Department for Work and Pensions estimated 4.33 million children in households in relative low income – below 60 per cent of median income after housing costs — in the year to March 2023.
This is up from 4.22 million the previous year and the highest since comparable records for Britain began in 2002/03.
Gravestones in Victoria Tower Gardens, London, during a Greenpeace demonstration, March 13, 2024
FUEL poverty campaigners created a mock cemetery outside Parliament today to mark the deaths of tens of thousands of people who have died from cold-related illnesses since the government cut grants to help insulate homes.
Hundreds of headstones, made with insulation panels used to help people keep their homes warm, were erected in a royal park by Greenpeace and the Fuel Poverty Action campaign.
Greenpeace said that 70,000 people — on average 58 a day — have died from cold-related illnesses since the government slashed subsidies for loft and wall insulation in 2013.
Greenpeace UK fuel poverty campaigner Paul Morozzo said: “Thousands of people are literally freezing to death in their own homes during winter.
“And not only have successive governments failed to prevent this needless and shocking loss of life but they have fuelled this silent public health crisis by slashing insulation funding and failing to deliver a proper scheme to upgrade our cold, damp, draughty homes.”
Keir Starmer sucking up to the rich and powerful at World Economic Forum, Davos.
Beyond each Labour U-turn is a well of suffering and poverty that has no justifiable reason to exist, says trade union case worker Kasmira Kincaid
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Our politicians invariably speak of “fiscal responsibility”; of “balancing the budget” and “living within our means”. The Keir Starmer of today – as opposed to the Keir Starmer who was elected to lead the Labour Party in 2020 – is no different. But these words just serve to obscure the obscenity of what is actually being said: that we can’t afford to feed the poor, to house the homeless, and to allow people to live in dignity and comfort.
But the thing is we can. We know we can. We know it when we see government funds used to drop bombs on foreign countries. We know it when we see sweeping tax cuts to the wealthy, and tax evaders let off the hook. And we know it when we walk past empty tower blocks, full of investment properties, while homeless people die on the streets.
It’s a supreme form of gaslighting to suggest otherwise, asking us to deny the evidence of our senses and experiences. Making sure everyone gets what they need is a logistical challenge, for sure. But there is enough to make sure everyone gets what they need.
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As a new Labour government comes to feel inevitable, many of us are taking stock of what such a government would mean. Over the last four years, Keir Starmer has U-turned on practically every anti-austerity policy in his 2020 leadership bid: from abolishing universal credit and what he once called “the Tories’ cruel sanctions regime”; to scrapping work capability assessments and the two-child limit on benefits; to re-nationalising key public services.
Today I live a life where few of these policies would directly affect me. Yet I haven’t forgotten what it felt like to be in the firing line for government decisions. The material conditions of people’s lives should be the beginning and end of politics. As we voice our opposition to continued austerity we’d do well to remember that. To remember that beyond each of these U-turns is a well of human suffering that has no justifiable reason to exist.
Kasmira Kincaid is a trade union case worker and former benefits claimant.
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
“Today’s budget exposes a government that is blind to the scale of the crises we face. While private companies are taking home more profit than ever before, more than 4 million children live in poverty.”
Jeremy Corbyn MP
“Austerity is a political choice, not an economic necessity” – Jeremy Corbyn exclusive on #Budget24
Jeremy Corbyn MP writes for Labour Outlookon #Budget24.
This is what we said back in 2015, five years into a devastating programme of cuts and privatisation. We knew that austerity would decimate our public services, plunge millions into poverty and send our country into economic decline. It was true then – and it is true now.
Today’s budget exposes a government that is blind to the scale of the crises we face. While private companies are taking home more profit than ever before, more than 4 million children live in poverty. A quarter of a million people are homeless, while millions more languish on social housing waiting lists. Our NHS is on its knees after decades of austerity and privatisation.
Perhaps most alarmingly, we are sleepwalking toward a climate emergency. Make no mistake, the climate crisis is here, and we are running out of time to avoid total catastrophe. People in the Global South are already suffering the worst consequences – more and more people in this country will experience the devastating effects of air pollution, heatwaves and flooding.
The Tories’ economic experiment has failed – and they should not get off lightly. Parroting the language of austerity is a grave mistake, and represents a missed opportunity to bring about the transformative change this country needs. When there are more billionaires in this country than ever before, the idea that we cannot afford to build a fairer and greener society is absurd. We have the means to end poverty, pay our workers properly and save the planet. We just need the political will.
Millions of us still believe in a real alternative.
One that funds a fully-public NHS; austerity and privatisation are the causes of – not the solutions to – the healthcare crisis.
One that introduced rent controls and builds social housing; we will never tackle the housing emergency until we treat housing as a human right, and embark upon a huge council house-building programme.
One that invests in a Green New Deal to transform the economy and create thousands of green, unionised jobs.
One that scraps the 2-child benefits cap; this cruel and callous policy is a moral disgrace, and we could pay for the abolition of this policy seventeen times over with a 1-2% wealth tax on people with assets over £10 million.
One that brings energy, water, rail and mail into public ownership; privatisation has been a total disaster, and it’s time we stood up to the companies holding our country to ransom.
Our economy is not just broken. It is rigged in the interests of the few – and unless we fundamentally rewrite the rules of our economy, nothing will change. There’s nothing fiscally responsible about plunging millions of people into poverty or destroying our natural world. Why can’t we have the courage to campaign for a more joyful, equal and sustainable future?
As the MP for Islington North, I will continue to campaign alongside my community for a redistribution of wealth and power. For an economy that puts human need before corporate greed. For a society that cares for each other and cares for all.
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“The next government’s energy policy should aim at ending fuel poverty, not managing it, and the money to do it is right there in energy company profits.”
In Manchester, there was an angry response to what the End Fuel Poverty Coalition described as a ‘another feeble budget.’
“The Chancellor failed to close the 91 percent loophole in windfall taxes, and failed to invest in the green jobs that would deliver cheaper home-grown energy for us all, and healthier homes,” said a spokesperson for the Coalition.
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Stu Bretherton, Energy For All Campaign Coordinator at Fuel Poverty Action said he hopes Wednesday’s Statement will be the last Budget of a government that has “driven mass poverty, broken public services, illness and death.”
But Bretherton warned that none of the parties are “offering the bold changes that we desperately need so today we’re seeing trade unions, pensioners, climate activists and health workers Unite for Energy For All.”
“The next government’s energy policy should aim at ending fuel poverty, not managing it, and the money to do it is right there in energy company profits,” he said.
