• Contact
  • About
  • Authors
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
Yorkshire Bylines
  • Home
  • News
    • All
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
    Emmanuel Macron

    French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    cost of living march london

    Trade union movement marches to demand better

    European Union

    After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Refugee Week

    Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

    Yorkshire cows

    British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

    Julian Assange

    Julian Assange’s extradition given the green light by the UK home secretary

    RSPB heritage event

    RSPB heritage event to tell the story of the Dearne Valley, from coal face to wild place

    Trending Tags

    • Johnson
    • Coronavirus
    • Labour
    • Starmer
    • NI Protocol
    • Brexit
    • Culture
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Culture
    • Dance
    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Recipes
    • Sport
    Nostell Priory, Wakefield

    Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

    Headingley Cricket Stadium

    A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

    Bettys' Fat Rascals

    Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

    'Woke' beliefs

    Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Red Ladder

    Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

    Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

    Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

    Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

    Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

    Queen cakes fit for a Queen

    Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Sport
  • Business
    • All
    • Economy
    • Technology
    • Trade
    Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

    International Women in Engineering Day 2022

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    conservative party

    The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

    Yorkshire cows

    British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

    cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

    Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

    Money on the floor - £20 notes

    The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

    Financial problems

    Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

    An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

    Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

    Jar with money cascading out of it

    Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

    Trending Tags

      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
    • Region
    No Result
    View All Result
    • Home
    • News
      • All
      • Brexit
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Health
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
      Emmanuel Macron

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      cost of living march london

      Trade union movement marches to demand better

      European Union

      After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Refugee Week

      Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

      Yorkshire cows

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      Julian Assange

      Julian Assange’s extradition given the green light by the UK home secretary

      RSPB heritage event

      RSPB heritage event to tell the story of the Dearne Valley, from coal face to wild place

      Trending Tags

      • Johnson
      • Coronavirus
      • Labour
      • Starmer
      • NI Protocol
      • Brexit
      • Culture
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
    • Politics
    • Opinion
    • Lifestyle
      • All
      • Culture
      • Dance
      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Recipes
      • Sport
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      Headingley Cricket Stadium

      A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

      Bettys' Fat Rascals

      Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

      'Woke' beliefs

      Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Red Ladder

      Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

      Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

      Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

      Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

      Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

      Queen cakes fit for a Queen

      Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Sport
    • Business
      • All
      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
      Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

      International Women in Engineering Day 2022

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      conservative party

      The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

      Yorkshire cows

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

      Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

      Money on the floor - £20 notes

      The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

      Financial problems

      Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

      An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

      Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

      Jar with money cascading out of it

      Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

      Trending Tags

        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Region
      No Result
      View All Result
      Yorkshire Bylines
      No Result
      View All Result
      Home Business Economy

      Let’s do away with food banks

      John Cole questions why we have foodbanks in such a prosperous society, and how austerity led to divisions in this country.

      John ColebyJohn Cole
      15-01-2021 08:00
      in Economy, Lifestyle, Politics
      Food Bank image by edwin josé vega ramos for pexels

      Food Bank image by edwin josé vega ramos for pexels

      48
      VIEWS
      Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
      ADVERTISEMENT

      Marcus Rashford has done a superb job in ensuring that schoolchildren are fed during school holidays and lockdown periods. In the absence of these efforts, hungry children would be even more common than they are. The question is though – should we be looking to extend the food bank networks, perhaps guaranteeing their funding from government sources? Or should we be looking to eradicate ALL poverty, full stop? Those who run food banks would be delighted if universal rising real incomes made them unnecessary.

      Even before the covid pandemic struck, food poverty had risen up the news and hence political, agenda. In Britain in 2009, the Trussell Trust was operating 30 food banks. Today, the total number is 2,100, with the Trussell Trust operating over half. The number of food parcels handed out by the Trust had increased by 74 percent in the last five years and in the year ending March 2020, 1.9 million packages were delivered.

      Professor Philip Alston is an internationally respected human rights lawyer who was until recently the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. In 2018, he chose to come to the UK “primarily because it was a laboratory for neoliberal approaches to welfare”. He spent long hours over 12 days speaking not just to government ministers but to charitable organisations and individuals at the sharp end. His conclusion was that the neoliberal experiment had failed – and failed badly: “The food bank is the perfect indicator of failed government policies”.

      According to Alston, about 14 million people, a fifth of the UK population, live in poverty and 1.5 million are destitute, being unable to afford basic essentials – figures provided by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Destitution had virtually disappeared from these islands 20 years ago, but has now made a comeback. Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick and her colleagues of Heriot-Watt University have developed their own definition of destitution, based on publicly agreed minimum levels of income needed for “basic physiological functioning”. For a single person living alone, that is £70 a week after rent for food, heat, light, clothing and footwear, and toiletries like soap and toothpaste. The numbers falling under this standard are growing.

      Causes of the growth of extreme poverty are mixed, and start with low wages at the bottom end of the workforce. The waning of trade unions in the UK has been part of the growth of the so-called ‘flexible labour market’ beloved of neoliberal economists. Not only are wages low but there is insecurity of employment – see the gig economy, whereby you receive no steady wage but are paid, for example, by the number of pizzas you deliver. This has now given rise to ‘the precariat’. Some 70 percent of those in receipt of government welfare benefits have an adult in work within the household – a telling indictment of low wages.

      A further and significant cause of poverty has been the impact of tax and benefit changes since 2010 – a period of austerity in government fiscal policy. A decade of austerity cuts shrank the social security system, leaving it at bare subsistence levels with the benefits bill down by £37bn. Local government finance too was heavily hit by austerity with, on average, central government funding to councils being reduced by 50 percent. And the latter cuts here were highly regressive – with the ten poorest authorities in the country suffering funding reductions 18 times higher than the ten wealthiest.

      The cumulative impact of tax and welfare reforms

      Fig 4.1 shows the impact of tax and benefit changes  2010 onwards. Note in particular the black line that shows the total impact of changes. We can see that the second-poorest decile suffers the biggest loss of income (over £2,000) whilst the second  and third deciles from the top end up being better off.

      The reforms can be described as regressive, because they take proportionately more from the poor compared with the rich. Across the income distribution chart, it can be seen that households in the bottom two deciles lost 9–10 percent of their net income on average as a result of tax and benefit changes, whereas households in the top decile lost less than 0.1 percent on average.

      Breaking the results down by demographic type shows that households with children are the largest losers from the reforms. In particular, lone parents lose an average of £5,250 – almost one-fifth of their total net income. Couples with children lose £3,000 per year on average. Households with three or more children see particularly large losses of around £5,600.

      Not all groups have been hit equally hard by these changes. Women suffer disproportionately more – partly because single-parent households with children are usually headed by the mother. Hence, Professor Alston tartly comments, “If you got a group of misogynists in a room and said how can we make this system work for men and not for women they would not have come up with too many ideas that are not already in place”. Similarly, most ethnic minority groups come off badly from these reforms. The biggest losers are Bangladeshi households (losing on average £4,400) followed by Pakistani households on £2,700. (We can note in passing that these two ethnic minority communities also suffer disproportionately from the Covid pandemic).

      Commentators have been quick to slate universal credit – once touted as the Conservatives’ flagship reform of welfare. To take just two points – it defies justice that people whose claim has been approved should be obliged to wait for five weeks before the first payment arrives. If a loan has been taken out to cover the five-week shortfall, the subsequent repayment means that of every new £1 earned 63p goes back to the government. (When did the top income earners in the UK last face a marginal tax rate of 63 percent?)

      Secondly, whilst receiving payment, recipients are obliged to go online and job search. In Alston’s words, “I think breaking rocks has some similarity to the 35 hours of job search for people who have been out of work for months or years … They have to go through the motions but it is completely useless”. Those readers who have watched Ken Loach’s film ‘I Daniel Blake’ will require no further details.

      This is clearly a situation that is totally unacceptable to any reader with an active social conscience. What to do about it? To bullet point a few immediate suggestions:

      • Significantly increase the level of benefit available through universal credit and remove the five-week wait for first payment
      • End the two-child limit on benefits
      • End the spare room subsidy (bedroom tax)
      • Change completely the universal credit ethic and move to treating applicants as human beings with dignity, rather than, as the Victorians would have had it, as the undeserving poor
      • Alternatively and more radically, move to the model of a universal basic income
      • Restore a more equitable balance in employer/employee relationships and legislate in parliament to bring about greater industrial democracy
      • Legislate to give greater protection and security to those in the gig economy
      • Bring back the Sure Start centres that gave at least a chance of levelling up
      • Create a better system of local authority funding less vulnerable to Whitehall diktat to restore that ‘culture of local concern’ of which Alston spoke

      The above will come at a cost. Can we afford it? The answer is that if we are to maintain reasonable social cohesion, we cannot afford not to. The UK is a relatively under-taxed society, with 33 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) going to the government in taxation (2019) – a figure that is lower than the OECD average and significantly less than France (45 percent) Italy (42 percent) and Finland (42 percent). A survey in 2016 to find the nation with the most contented populace discovered the happiest nation was Denmark – which at 46 percent pays the highest proportion of GDP in taxes. And there is always scope to improve the UK tax system by making it more progressive and shifting some of the heavy lifting on to taxation of wealth (including that salted away in overseas tax havens) and land.

      Austerity has a lot to answer for and we may note that the two leading protagonists were David Cameron and George Osborne (both dismissed by a third Conservative MP Nadine Dorries as “two arrogant posh boys who don’t know the price of milk”). We may reflect also that if Cameron and Osborne had wished to engineer a victory for Leave in the 2016 referendum they could hardly have done better than institute five years of austerity and then themselves take on the leadership of the Remain campaign. Their austerity created a constituency only too keen to give them “a kick in the pants”. The sad irony is that leaving the EU will only worsen the financial plight of the country’s chronic poor.

      Tags: Cost of living
      ADVERTISEMENT
      Previous Post

      As MPs call for action on long covid, Baker’s rebels plot…

      Next Post

      ‘Levelling-up’ government guts Transport for the North

      John Cole

      John Cole

      John has had two careers – firstly teaching economics and secondly as a district councillor on Bradford Council. A liberal since 6th form, he has twice been a parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Democrats. John is a keen internationalist and writer of letters - over the years he has sent in nearly two hundred to the Yorkshire Post. He enjoys singing, playing bridge and gardening.

      Related Posts

      Conservative Party Meeting
      Politics

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      bySue Wilson MBE
      27 June 2022
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield
      Music

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      byJohn Heywood
      26 June 2022
      10/05/2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
      Politics

      The country needs more than just ‘Booting Boris out of Downing Street’

      byDr Stella Perrott
      26 June 2022
      Emmanuel Macron
      Politics

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      byAnn Moody
      25 June 2022
      March for women
      Politics

      Women of Wakefield: people power only works if the people use that power

      byProfessor Juliet Lodge
      24 June 2022
      Next Post
      "Train" image by tejvanphotos for Creative Commons

      ‘Levelling-up’ government guts Transport for the North

      Want to support us?

      Can you help Yorkshire Bylines to grow and become more sustainable with a regular donation, no matter how small?  

      DONATE

      Sign up to our newsletter

      If you would like to receive the Yorkshire Bylines regular newsletter, straight talking direct to your inbox, click the button below.

      NEWSLETTER

      LATEST

      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      26 June 2022
      10/05/2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street

      The country needs more than just ‘Booting Boris out of Downing Street’

      26 June 2022
      Emmanuel Macron

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      25 June 2022

      MOST READ

      10/05/2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street

      The country needs more than just ‘Booting Boris out of Downing Street’

      26 June 2022
      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      26 June 2022
      Photo credit Robert Sharp / englishpenLicensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

      The Davis Downside Dossier

      1 January 2021

      BROWSE BY TAGS

      antivaxxers Charity climate change Coronavirus Cost of living Creative industries Crime Cummings Democracy Devolution education Equality Farming Fishing hgv History Immigration Johnson Journalism Labour Local Democracy Mental Health mining money NHS NI Protocol omicron Pies pollution poverty PPE Public Health Review shortage social media Starmer tax travel Ukraine Yorkshire
      Yorkshire Bylines

      Yorkshire Bylines is a regional online newspaper that supports citizen journalism. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in Yorkshire and beyond.

      Learn more about us

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Contact
      • About
      • Letters
      • Donate
      • Privacy
      • Bylines network
      • Shop

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Home
      • News
        • Brexit
        • Education
        • Environment
        • Health
        • Home Affairs
        • Transport
        • World
      • Politics
      • Opinion
      • Lifestyle
        • Culture
        • Dance
        • Food
        • Music
        • Poetry
        • Recipes
        • Sport
      • Business
        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Donate
      • The Compendium of Cabinet Codebreakers
      • The Davis Downside Dossier
      • The Digby Jones Index
      • Newsletter sign up
      • Cartoons by Stan
      • Authors

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      Welcome Back!

      Login to your account below

      Forgotten Password?

      Retrieve your password

      Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

      Log In