Starmer needs to show his government is taking poverty seriously, quickly
Lord Bird, founder of The Big Issue, 2021 (PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo)
4 min read
How does Keir Starmer plug the holes in his sinking ship when it’s springing leaks left, right and centre?
Something must change if Labour stands a chance of winning back the supporters that propelled them to a historic majority just ten months ago, yet finding a U-turn with mass appeal will be no mean feat if our electorate really is as divided as it appeared on May 1.
An issue that unites supporters of all parties does exist – and not only that, but it can also be found in Labour’s goldilocks zone of being both politically favourable and a moral necessity. According a new YouGov poll by the Big Issue, 72 per cent of all Brits agree that this government needs to do more to tackle poverty in the UK.
We’ve been waiting nearly a year for his government’s so-called ‘ambitious’ child poverty strategy
Public disapproval for the government’s inaction on poverty has grown by 18 per cent in just six months, when Big Issue last polled the question. Perhaps even more compellingly, it’s a significant issue for those jumping ship to Reform UK, with 68 per cent of those supporting the party highlighting as a key area where this government is failing.
The public is sitting up and noticing something on the streets of their towns and cities that the government appear ignorant of here in Westminster: 4.3 million children – around three in ten – live in relative poverty across the UK. Our relative child poverty rate is higher than any other EU nation bar Greece. The Resolution Foundation says nothing in the government’s armoury of new policies and legislation will stop this rise – in fact, on our current course of action, child poverty will rise to 4.6 million by 2030, the highest level since the turn of the century.
I grew up in the slums of Notting Hill. I know what it’s like to be a child in poverty, to feel being poor in your bones. Money was scarce; rats, mice, fleas, bedbugs, rattling windows and freezing cold neglect were in abundance. This was poverty, and it was surrounded by illness, violence, drunkenness and crime.
I would hate to see us return to the deep, painful poverty of the years I came out of. But I would say that the politics of today are inadequate to the task of preventing, impeding, limiting the economy’s ability to go the wrong way, shrinking and shrivelling and creating poverty again.
I can’t see anyone rising above the arguments and the poor thinking to properly take on the task of fighting poverty. We have to find the politics that suit these new, pressing times.
The PM needs to signal to the public that his government is taking poverty seriously, quickly. We’ve been waiting nearly a year for his government’s so-called ‘ambitious’ child poverty strategy. And a truly ambitious strategy requires bold and expensive action – such as axing the pernicious two-child benefit cap – at a time when the Chancellor strips disabled people of their benefits just to meet her own fiscal rules.
And so this government, like those who came before, muddle through, caring more for the immediate than ensuring an enduring and better long-term future. Shuffling into the future and carrying poverty with them. It’s time to hold their feet to the fire.
My new amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is currently being prepared for scrutiny at committee stage in the House of Lords, would place a new duty on the government to set targets for the reduction of child poverty. It would require each government to set legally binding child poverty reduction targets when they come to power, holding politicians to account for generations to come.
Politically, it gives Keir Starmer a way to signal to the supporters he’s losing to that his government is sitting up and listening. And morally, it is absolutely essential.
Lord Bird is a crossbench peer and co-founder of The Big Issue
The Big Issue is campaigning for a ‘Poverty Zero’ law – the establishment of statutory poverty reduction targets, which each government would set and become legally accountable when they assume office. Parliamentarians can find out more about the campaign by emailing publicaffairs@bigissue.com, while the public can show their support by signing a new petition.
