November marks the 75th anniversary of the Beveridge report that set out the founding of the Welfare State. The Socialist Party was one of the very few (perhaps the only political party) to explain and expose the hoax being perpetuated by the capitalist class and published two important critiques at the time, 'Beveridge Re-Organises Poverty' and
'Family Allowances: A Socialist Analysis'.
These reforms were aimed at eradicating what was called the five “giant evils”: want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. Beveridge thought taking the burden of healthcare and pension costs away from corporations and individuals and giving them to the government would increase the competitiveness of British industry while producing healthier, wealthier, more motivated and more productive workers keen to buy British goods. Seventy-five years on, however, the “five giants” are back in our daily life even if it is doubtful that they disappeared in the first instance.
The number of people dying of starvation in the UK is on the rise. Over the summer, researchers at Oxford University surveyed food bank users for the Trussell Trust and found 80% of them with severe and chronic food insecurity, leaving them vulnerable to malnutrition and nutritional deficiency. In 2015, 984 people died from malnutrition or dehydration – that is 19 people every week, or just more than two a day, starving to death in the UK.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation in May 2016, added a new measurement to its bleak scorecard: destitution – a term coined to describe someone facing two or more of the following in a month: sleeping rough, having one or no meals a day for two or more days, being unable to heat or to light your home for five or more days, going without weather-appropriate clothes or without basic toiletries.
Across 2015, 1,252,000 people – including 312,000 children – faced destitution at some point in the year. That is roughly 2% of the population in the world’s fifth largest economy struggling to eat, keep warm and clean and find a bed for the night.
This summer, Unicef reported that nearly one in five UK children lacked sufficient safe and nutritious food.
The official Households Below Average Income figures released in March show child poverty standing at the highest level since 2009/10, with 4 million children in the UK now living in relative poverty.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) predicts absolute child poverty will rise from 15.1% in 2015-16 to 18.3% in 2020-21.
67% of British children in poverty now live in a household where someone is in work.
Poverty levels have remained fairly constant over the past decade at roughly 21% of the population or 13 million people but the IFS argues, these official figures are an under-estimate, with previously secure middle-class families living increasingly precarious lives and with people cycling in and out of the official definition of poverty once or twice a year.
At the end of 2016, the GMB union ran ONS data on average earnings for 170 occupations between 2007 and 2016 and found only 19 of them have seen earnings keep pace with inflation – including tax accountants, tailors, chauffeurs and air-traffic controllers. If you are a special needs teacher, a paramedic, a psychologist, a bricklayer, a journalist, a police officer, a cleaner or a vet, then your salary is going down.
The ban on councils building houses has contributed to the shortage of homes that is slowly throttling the country – across London, the number of homes built in the six years to the end of 2016 is just 41.8% of the number of new households formed in the same period, according to a GMB analysis of government housing and planning data. Fewer people own their home either outright or with a mortgage than at any time since 1986. One-third of private rental homes in the UK fail to meet the national Decent Homes Standard – meaning they either contain safety hazards or do not have acceptable kitchen and bathroom facilities or adequate heating. More than 795,000 homes harbour severe health threats from damp and mould, pests, electrical installations, excess cold, dangerous levels of carbon monoxide, lead and other chemicals, including asbestos. One in 10 private renters were worried they would be kicked out if they made a fuss. The Local Housing Allowancesets the level of housing benefit available for tenants in the private rented sector – restricting people to the less expensive properties. Since 2010, the maximum acceptable level of housing benefit was set in such a way that it only covers the rents of the cheapest 30% of homes. That level has been frozen until the end of the decade although rents are still climbing. In November 2016, the maximum benefit for a room in shared accommodation in Manchester, for instance, was £291 per month. For a two-bedroom flat, it was £519 per month. According to numbers from the Valuation Office Agency published the same month, the lowest rent for shared accommodation in Manchester was £325 per month, and for two bedrooms was £585 per month. Housing benefit, in other words, no longer covers people’s rent. Half of working families – roughly 3.7 million families – are cutting back on essential food and clothing to pay the rent, according to Shelter.
Some 58,000 households were accepted as homeless in 2015/16, an increase of almost 50% over the past five years.
Prof Sir Michael Marmot’s review on health inequality, first published in 2010, found that people living in the poorest neighbourhoods in England died, on average, seven years earlier than people in the richest neighbourhoods.
In July this year, he updated his findings – the longest life expectancy in the country was in Kensington and Chelsea where, on average, men die at 83 and women die at 86. By contrast, the lowest life expectancy was in the north of England: in Blackpool, it is 74 for men; in Manchester, it is 79 for women. Kensington and Chelsea may be the richest constituency in the country, but it is also among the most unequal. Life expectancy in the borough that included the Grenfell Tower was 14 years shorter for its poorest residents.
'Family Allowances: A Socialist Analysis'.
These reforms were aimed at eradicating what was called the five “giant evils”: want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. Beveridge thought taking the burden of healthcare and pension costs away from corporations and individuals and giving them to the government would increase the competitiveness of British industry while producing healthier, wealthier, more motivated and more productive workers keen to buy British goods. Seventy-five years on, however, the “five giants” are back in our daily life even if it is doubtful that they disappeared in the first instance.
The number of people dying of starvation in the UK is on the rise. Over the summer, researchers at Oxford University surveyed food bank users for the Trussell Trust and found 80% of them with severe and chronic food insecurity, leaving them vulnerable to malnutrition and nutritional deficiency. In 2015, 984 people died from malnutrition or dehydration – that is 19 people every week, or just more than two a day, starving to death in the UK.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation in May 2016, added a new measurement to its bleak scorecard: destitution – a term coined to describe someone facing two or more of the following in a month: sleeping rough, having one or no meals a day for two or more days, being unable to heat or to light your home for five or more days, going without weather-appropriate clothes or without basic toiletries.
Across 2015, 1,252,000 people – including 312,000 children – faced destitution at some point in the year. That is roughly 2% of the population in the world’s fifth largest economy struggling to eat, keep warm and clean and find a bed for the night.
This summer, Unicef reported that nearly one in five UK children lacked sufficient safe and nutritious food.
The official Households Below Average Income figures released in March show child poverty standing at the highest level since 2009/10, with 4 million children in the UK now living in relative poverty.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) predicts absolute child poverty will rise from 15.1% in 2015-16 to 18.3% in 2020-21.
67% of British children in poverty now live in a household where someone is in work.
Poverty levels have remained fairly constant over the past decade at roughly 21% of the population or 13 million people but the IFS argues, these official figures are an under-estimate, with previously secure middle-class families living increasingly precarious lives and with people cycling in and out of the official definition of poverty once or twice a year.
At the end of 2016, the GMB union ran ONS data on average earnings for 170 occupations between 2007 and 2016 and found only 19 of them have seen earnings keep pace with inflation – including tax accountants, tailors, chauffeurs and air-traffic controllers. If you are a special needs teacher, a paramedic, a psychologist, a bricklayer, a journalist, a police officer, a cleaner or a vet, then your salary is going down.
The ban on councils building houses has contributed to the shortage of homes that is slowly throttling the country – across London, the number of homes built in the six years to the end of 2016 is just 41.8% of the number of new households formed in the same period, according to a GMB analysis of government housing and planning data. Fewer people own their home either outright or with a mortgage than at any time since 1986. One-third of private rental homes in the UK fail to meet the national Decent Homes Standard – meaning they either contain safety hazards or do not have acceptable kitchen and bathroom facilities or adequate heating. More than 795,000 homes harbour severe health threats from damp and mould, pests, electrical installations, excess cold, dangerous levels of carbon monoxide, lead and other chemicals, including asbestos. One in 10 private renters were worried they would be kicked out if they made a fuss. The Local Housing Allowancesets the level of housing benefit available for tenants in the private rented sector – restricting people to the less expensive properties. Since 2010, the maximum acceptable level of housing benefit was set in such a way that it only covers the rents of the cheapest 30% of homes. That level has been frozen until the end of the decade although rents are still climbing. In November 2016, the maximum benefit for a room in shared accommodation in Manchester, for instance, was £291 per month. For a two-bedroom flat, it was £519 per month. According to numbers from the Valuation Office Agency published the same month, the lowest rent for shared accommodation in Manchester was £325 per month, and for two bedrooms was £585 per month. Housing benefit, in other words, no longer covers people’s rent. Half of working families – roughly 3.7 million families – are cutting back on essential food and clothing to pay the rent, according to Shelter.
Some 58,000 households were accepted as homeless in 2015/16, an increase of almost 50% over the past five years.
Prof Sir Michael Marmot’s review on health inequality, first published in 2010, found that people living in the poorest neighbourhoods in England died, on average, seven years earlier than people in the richest neighbourhoods.
In July this year, he updated his findings – the longest life expectancy in the country was in Kensington and Chelsea where, on average, men die at 83 and women die at 86. By contrast, the lowest life expectancy was in the north of England: in Blackpool, it is 74 for men; in Manchester, it is 79 for women. Kensington and Chelsea may be the richest constituency in the country, but it is also among the most unequal. Life expectancy in the borough that included the Grenfell Tower was 14 years shorter for its poorest residents.
Babies born in the poorest areas in the UK weigh on average 200g less than those born in the richest areas, threatening their cognitive development. Babies living in poverty are more likely to die within their first year of life. Those who survive are more likely to have chronic diseases, while a 2016 report by NHS Digital found that reception-year children in the most deprived areas in England were twice as likely to be obese than children in the least deprived areas. In May, a survey of 266 paediatricians at 90 NHS trusts found two in five doctors held back on discharging a child in the previous six months because of concerns about housing or food insecurity. Only one doctor said poverty and low income did not contribute to the ill health of the children they work with, while more than two-thirds said it contributed “very much”.
In June, a survey from 40 health charities comprising the Prescription Charges Coalition found 30% of people living with long-term health conditions and paying for their prescriptions have not collected medicine due to concerns over cost, while in both England and Scotland GP coverage is lower in areas of deprivation.
The Socialist Party later published an analysis of education accusing the school system of failing to develop children's potential. Today, England and Northern Ireland rank in the bottom four OECD countries for literacy and numeracy among 16-24-year-olds, with employers investing less in skills than in most other EU countries. In September, 4,000 head-teachers across England wrote to parents to warn that budgets face a real-terms cut of 4.6% by 2020. According to the teaching unions, a typical primary school will be worse off annually by £52,546 and a typical secondary school will have lost £178,000 each year since 2015.
In the three months to May this year, average pay adjusted for inflation fell by 0.5% year-on-year. Unstable, precarious, low-paid and temporary jobs have a huge part to play in this. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development estimates that full-time employees make up just only 60% of the workforce. Around 900,000 people were on zero-hours contracts in May, according to ONS data – and since many of these people need two jobs to make ends meet, the survey found some 1.4 million zero-hours contracts in place, or 5% of all employment agreements. Someone on a zero-hours contract works, on average, 26 hours a week – with more than a quarter wanting more hours, compared with 7% of other workers. There are an estimated 1.2 million people working for recruitment agencies with companies from Sports Direct to Amazon contracting out their personnel operations to agencies such as Transline or Manpower.
As our pamphlet on Beveridge's reforms, better described as the the-organisation of poverty, explains it "has provided a first-class political diversion and a red herring to draw across the trail of Socialism...The Beveridge proposals will not solve the poverty problem of the working-class. They will level the workers’ position as a whole, reducing the more favourably placed to a lower level and putting the worst placed on a less evil level. This is not a “new world” of hope, but a re-distribution of misery."
Figures from
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