“There continue to be signs of normalisation in the housing market” says the government (Budget Report 2015, 915, para 124). With home ownership in retreat, rents rising and 1.3 million on the social housing waiting lists, the situation seems much more like an entrenched crisis than…Read more…
Sharp fall in construction output as house-building slumps
Construction output fell -2.6% between December 2014 and January 2015, the fourth monthly decline in the past six months. The main factor behind the decline in January was a sharp fall in house-building of -5.1% on the month. There has been only one la…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: life expectancy in the poorest parts of the country is up to 9 years less than in the richest
In this series I’ve mainly concentrated on inequality between individuals and the poverty that affects classes of people, like disabled people or women. But our society is divided geographically too and statistics released last week revealed that the more disadvantaged an area is, the lower the…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: front line Jobcentre workers aren’t responsible for benefit sanctions
Could this be the month when the general public start to worry about benefit sanctions? The Methodist church reported that approximately one hundred thousand children were sanctioned in 2013/14. This followed earlier work revealing that more than 100 p…Read more…
The time is now when it comes to housing
At a time of house price inflation, falling home ownership, more people privately renting and increased private rents, the recent English Housing Survey showed the proportion of people renting social housing remained steady at 17 per cent in 2013/14[1]. However, the number of people on local…Read more…
Voluntary services face bleak future as ‘servants of the Government’
The involvement of global corporations in the privatisation of public services is firmly on the nation’s agenda. But less well known is the way in which charities and voluntary groups have been seduced or cajoled by New Labour and Coalition governments into helping the outsourcing along. And, in…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: Child poverty is rising by 900,000 under this government
There are 300,000 fewer children living in poverty than there were when I became Prime Minister Last June the Prime Minister claimed success on child poverty, a line that is repeated from time to time by the usual suspects. To any listener who had been…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: 58 per cent of benefit cuts will hit working families
As we come up to the election, the government’s plans for benefit cuts are going to be a vital issue. The reality of this policy is that most of these cuts have hit families in working poverty, but the politics of this debate mean that the key issue is whether the government can persuade…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: 85 per cent of tax and benefit “savings” have been at the expense of women
Yesterday the Independent Inquiry Into Women and Jobseeker’s Allowance published Where’s the Benefit. Chaired by Amanda Ariss of the Equality and Diversity Forum and co-ordinated by the Fawcett Society, the Inquiry reported important findings about how JSA indirectly discriminates against women….Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: 800,000 children live in families that are behind on their energy bills
(Warning: long post.) This week’s headline comes from Show Some Warmth, an excellent new report from the Children’s Society that looked at the problem of energy debt – families falling into debt because they cannot pay their energy bills. The report found that 3.8 million children live in…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: 145,000 people using food banks because of benefit delays
I have difficult feelings whenever I see a report about the Trussell Trust. On the one hand, I admire them more than any other charity (and I kick myself if I get to the check-out at the Co-op and realise I’ve forgotten to include a tin for the food bank). But on the other hand…Read more…
100 claimants with mental health problems have their benefits stopped every day
Figures obtained by the Methodist Church from the Department of Work and Pensions have revealed that claimants thought to be unfit for work due to mental health problems are disproportionately and increasingly likely to have their benefits stopped under sanctions. The DWP’s own figures show that in…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: Most Remploy workers never got another job
In 2012 the government closed down the subsidy for the disabled workers in more than fifty Remploy factories around the country. By September 2013 all but three had closed; the GMB estimates that 2,700 workers lost their jobs. Some of those weren’t disabled; the House of Commons library estimates…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: men in the richest areas live nine years longer than men in the poorest areas
If, like me, your New Year’s Resolution was to switch to a healthier lifestyle you may have been thinking a lot about life expectancy. (I wonder how many people had a look at the Death Clock at the start of the year!) And that’s what prompted me to think about poverty and inequality and life…Read more…
Magna Carta and Social Security
This year (15 June) we’ll mark the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta. The commemorations will include a TV documentary, a Magna Carta cycle trail, a visit by 800 American lawyers and, I kid you not, a new roundabout on the A308. A lot of the people I usually agree with will be…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: cruelty to people who are weak and poor is the most important fact of all
This is my last Fact of the Week until the New Year, and I want finish 2014 by thinking about the human costs of benefit cuts. The other facts have been the sort you can put a £ sign in front of or a % sign after, or which you measure in millions. Here I…Read more…
Supreme Court ruling on conscientious objection and abortion
Yesterday, the Supreme Court made an important ruling on the issue of the scope of conscientious objection for healthcare professionals. The case (Greater Glasgow Health Board v Doogan and Wood) was taken by two Labour Ward co-ordinators in the Souther…Read more…
The Benefit Cap: is it worthwhile?
The Department for Work and Pensions has just published their evaluation of the impact of the Benefit Cap in its first year. The Cap is a limit to the maximum amount of working age benefits a family can receive – for families with children, £500 a month. How has the policy fared? The…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: the poorest pay 47 per cent of their income in tax (the richest pay 34 per cent)
(Warning: long post.) In his Autumn Statement speech the Chancellor claimed to be a modern day Robin Hood: In fact, the net contribution [to austerity] of the richest 20% will be larger than the remaining 80% put together – proving we are all in this together. This is similar to an argument you…Read more…
Are in-work benefits in the UK a magnet for EU migrants?
Should the UK be aiming to restrict access to benefits for citizens of other EU countries who are working here? The Prime Minister made this objective the centrepiece of his recent speech on migration: ‘Someone coming to the UK from elsewhere in the EU, who is employed on the minimum wage and who…Read more…