“TACKLING poverty will always be a priority for this government,” an anonymous spokesman assures us after that government’s own statistics show the number of children living in absolute poverty has risen again.
The 200,000 kids driven below the absolute poverty line in the last year form part of 12.5 million people — 19 per cent of the population — who live in absolute poverty “once housing costs are accounted for,” rising to 14 million in relative poverty.
And the proportion of those children from working households continues to rise, now hitting 70 per cent. We might bear this in mind when the Tories brag that “employment is at a record high” as the same spokesman continues — there is not much point boasting about getting people into work if the jobs are so badly paid they trap families in poverty rather than providing a route out of it.
If readers feel a sense of deja vu on seeing these statistics, that’s because child poverty has risen year after year on the Tories’ watch.
Adam Corlett of the Resolution Foundation points the finger at “ongoing benefit cuts” including benefits being frozen in cash terms.
Labour rightly savages the roll-out of universal credit “which is pushing people into poverty” while Bishop of Durham Paul Butler is correct to highlight the injustice of limiting child benefit to the first two children “which will push even more children deeper into poverty over the next few years.”
More than a year after Chancellor Philip Hammond claimed austerity was over, the devastating impact of the Tory war on welfare is continuing to ruin lives.
“These children will have worse mental and physical health, shorter lives, do less well in school and have fewer opportunities in adulthood,” as End Child Poverty chair Anna Feuchtwang says.
Theresa May’s resignation as PM is demanded by some Tory MPs as a condition of backing her twice-rejected departure deal with the EU.
But the march of poverty and hunger across the nations of Britain should be reason enough for us to force the exit not just of May but of the entire Tory government.
Feuchtwang says rising poverty is an “extraordinary direction of travel for a developed nation.”
We need to change direction and can be thankful at least that Labour now has the policies to do so.
When its leader comes under attack we should never forget that he, unlike almost all of his critics, voted against the inhumane child benefit cap, warning that “we shouldn’t play the government’s political games when the welfare of children is at stake” when Labour’s interim 2015 leadership bottled it for fear of looking soft on welfare.
That instinct to prioritise ordinary people’s lives over political games needs reviving now.
Parliament’s contortions over Brexit — with MPs rejecting every single option put to them in “indicative votes” and still prattling about “taking control” of the process — risk sidelining the real priority of forcing a general election and fighting for a Labour victory so we can turn the tide of poverty and despair.
Think tank language around “high inflation and weak pay growth” present these economic trends as inescapable natural phenomena.
But they are the consequences of an unregulated market allowing landlords and corporate monopolies to ramp up prices and a mostly unorganised workforce without trade unions to fight for better pay and challenge a ruling class that is not delivering for the country.
The fight for an election cannot be left to Labour in Parliament — many of its MPs seem lukewarm about the prospect in any case. The pressure for the government to go is a task for our movement at every level.
