Anon
How do we create a just economy and do away with poverty and destitution? How do we overcome the divisive effect of poor and wealthy regions in the United Kingdom?
The answer to both questions is: political action resulting in the passing of legislation. How do we secure the requisite political action? Learned reports ad nauseum, petitions, campaigns seemingly have little impact on the electorate or the manifestos of the political parties. Very little has changed in the thirty years I have been active in the social justice sphere.
Below is a passage from the BIG ISSUE published on 9th December. Lottie Elton 9 Dec 2024
Blackpool has the lowest male life expectancy in the UK.
People in the most deprived parts of the country are now expected to die up to a decade sooner than people in wealthier areas.
Shocking new figures have exposed stark life expectancy divides across the UK. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Blackpool now has the lowest male life expectancy in the country – the first time since records began in 2001 that Glasgow has not come bottom of the rankings.
A baby boy born in Blackpool between 2021 and 2023 is likely to live for 73.1 years. In affluent Hart, Hampshire, the life expectancy for baby boys is 83.4.
Glaswegian girls born during this period have the lowest life expectancy in the country, at 78.26 years. Meanwhile, girls born in Kensington and Chelsea are expected to live to 86.46.
The rankings are evidence of a “clear geographical divide,” the ONS has warned. The 10 areas with the highest life expectancies for both women and men were in southern England. The vast majority of areas with the lowest life expectancy were in Scotland and northern England. And the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has warned that it shows the “devastating impacts of poverty on life expectancy”.
Joseph Elliott, Lead Analyst at JRF, described the figures as “shocking but not unexpected".
“Not being able to afford essential items like enough food or heating robs people of options and dignity but also impacts their health. This in turn puts pressure on public services in more deprived areas, which are staggering under the weight of hardship,” he added.
“If we want people’s health to improve, we need to hear how the government intends to immediately bring down hardship as a first step. But we also need to see the longer-term change that’s needed if everyone in our country is going to have the same chances of good health, regardless of where they live.”
A JRF spokesperson on social media added that “being born into poverty could take years off your life. This is not OK.”
In the vast majority of areas, life expectancy has fallen since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 70% of areas seeing an overall decline. “We are yet to see a recovery from the decrease in life expectancy we saw during the pandemic,” the ONS explained.
Yet in deprived areas, the downward trend has been ongoing for years. In Blackpool, for instance, life expectancy has dropped 18 months since 2014, when it was 74.7 for men.
During this time, austerity has slashed local council funding for preventative health services. According to a report tabled to Blackpool council this year, the local authority has roughly £1,400 less per person to spend on its population than it did over a decade ago. Its public health grant has been cut by £10 per person since 2013.
Last week, academics from the University of Glasgow published a book linking regional disparities in life expectancy to government policy.
In Glasgow – until this year repeatedly the city with the lowest male life expectancy in the UK – spending pressures have wiped nearly half a billion pounds over the council’s budget over the last 10 years.
In their book Social Murder? Austerity and life expectancy in the UK, Dr David Walsh and professor Gerry McCartney explore how such cuts impact health – and argue that the decline in life expectancy evidences a “dereliction of duty from those in power”.
“Life expectancy is about more than just health – it’s about the kind of society we live in,” Dr Walsh said.
“And in the early 2010s, after decades of continual improvement, life expectancy in the UK stopped increasing, and for a great many it actually declined. This is something that simply should not be happening in a wealthy society.”
The previous Conservative government’s austerity spending cuts shaved nearly half a year off the average person’s life between 2010 and 2019, research out earlier this year revealed.
The Big Issue has previously reported on disparities in ‘healthy life expectancy’ – the number of years a person can expect to spend in “good health”. Across the UK, the healthy life expectancy gap between the healthiest and unhealthiest local authority is 23.5 years for women and 21.2 years for men.
it brings shame on our society that we are prepared to accept this state of affairs. How do we energise people to demand change? Have the interests of the better off been protected and advanced at the expense of the poor? Yes has to be the answer. How should secular and faith organisations respond?
Below are my previous posts on poverty.
Part 173. Shocking. 23rd October 2023
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has funded the production of a report entitled: Destitution in the UK 2023. It is sombre reading, it is shocking. The report, in full, is available online and I commend it. Please read it.
The report states 1.8 million households equating to 3.8 million individuals live in destitution. Destitution is defined clearly in the report. Indeed there is an underclass in the UK as defined by JK Galbraith in a USA context. Galbraith said we have the means to overcome destitution, politically we prefer not so to do.
The situation is a damning indictment of the political process and the Civil Service. It is also an indictment of religious bodies. The latter are good at providing bandages but are reticent in attacking those causing the wounds. Religious bodies should be leading campaigns demanding change. No longer is the cry sustainable that religion should keep out of politics.
Christian churches need to engage with the political process, to shout out for social justice, to show leadership in the pursuit of His Kingdom on earth.
Part 187. Another damning indictment. 11th December 2023
In Part 173 reference is made to the report of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation entitled Destitution in the UK 2023. The report paints a shocking picture of the failure of the political process to alleviate and tackle the causes of extreme poverty.
Last week the Social Justice Commission of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) published its report Two Nations: the State of Poverty in the UK. It is further evidence of the failure of politicians to tackle poverty issues in any sustained meaningful way. The report tells of a widening gulf between main stream society and a depressed and poverty-stricken underclass. Shades of JK Galbraith. The gap is wider than it has been since Victorian times and risks becoming a chasm. The Chief Executive of CSJ states a strategy is needed to go after the root causes of poverty: education, work, debt, addiction and family. The report adds crime, poor housing and health to the list.
The Commission's membership includes Lord King. Former Governor of the Bank of England.
Tim Farron. Former Leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Andy Burnham. Former Labour minister and currently Mayor of Greater Manchester.
Miriam Cates. Conservative MP for Penistone & Stocksbridge.
(Cates is an evangelical Christian. She has been touting Tory MPs to oppose any proposals to ban conversion therapy and is no friend of the trans community. A former chief at CSJ she is married to a minister of a church supporting conversion therapy.)
Sadly, the latest report is likely to gather dust as have many other reports on the causes of poverty. There will be wringing of hands and expressions of concern but doubtless failure to tackle the systemic issues. As Galbraith noted society has the means to deal with the issues, it is unwilling to pay the cost. Instead there will be minor adjustments to alleviate the symptoms but nothing meaningful to tackle the causes.
From a Christian perspective we are told by Jesus to love our neighbour. Bishop Desmond Tutu said we should stop pulling people out of the river: instead we should go up river, find out why they are falling in and put a stop to it. The churches are very good at pulling people out of the river but woefully inadequate at demanding systemic change to stop them falling in. Christians individually and collectively should campaign vigorously in the political arena for systemic change to overcome poverty. Somehow I do not believe the denominations will engage politicians with the determination, passion, perseverance and zeal that is required to force change. But change is needed, urgently.
Part 222. Poverty: a stain on the nation. 26th January 2024
Yesterday, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a further report on poverty in the United Kingdom: UK Poverty 2024. The essential guide to understanding poverty in the UK. It is another truly shocking report and further clear evidence of the need for the campaign by the churches to demand government takes urgent action.
It is shameful that poverty levels are so high. The report is easy to find on a search engine and I have downloaded the Foundation's news article, which contains a download link to the report, to my Facebook page: John Hopkinson Theology Page. It is a long detailed report and well worth close study.
*Please take a look at the Let's End Poverty website: letsendpoverty.co.uk. it is brimful with campaigning ideas and action. Better still, join the campaign.
Part 291. Another damning report. 17th June 2024
Hardship, poverty and destitution should have no place in an affluent society, yet it looms large in Britain. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation published today another damning report: The impact of hardship on primary schools and primary and community healthcare.
It is an indictment of the political process that it enables this situation to exist and continue and also of a wider malaise in society. Faith and secular organisations have united to campaign against poverty, sadly with little impact on politicians, media and society. Read the election proposals and propaganda coming through your letterbox. How much is devoted to the subjects of poverty and destitution? Very little I surmise. The reality is as identified by JK Galbraith many years ago: we have the means but lack the will to effect change.
Part 313. Here we go again. Another report on poverty. 23rd August 2024
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a report: Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2024. It is a long, detailed document containing many statistics. It is sober reading.
The report is the latest in a long line of reports over the last fifty years that between them have attempted to identify the scope and causes of poverty, destitution, deprivation and inequality. The conclusion to be drawn is that precious little has been achieved to diminish or eradicate the problems.
There is a recurrent theme: the need for political will to make systemic changes to achieve both short-term palliative and long-term structural change. There is the need also for joined-up thinking to tackle issues across a wide area of activities: housing, health, education, training, employment opportunities, pay, social and care services, environment and planning. Shades of the Bains Report!.
It is imperative that secular and faith organisations continue to press politicians to implement legislation to achieve systemic change. JK Galbraith in the 1960s wrote, in the USA context, that politicians had the means but lacked the will to effect the necessary changes. So it is in the UK sixty years later.
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