More on tackling poverty

Recently I read an article by TAP: Taxpayers Against Poverty.  Below is the foreword to its publication: The Nicolson Report: The Poverty Scandal (16.02.2026): 

Foreword

This report is written in the shadow — and the spirit — of late Rev Paul Nicolson*, the founder of Taxpayers Against Poverty.

Paul spent his life insisting on a simple, uncomfortable truth: that poverty in a wealthy country is not inevitable, and that allowing it to persist is a moral failure and an economic folly. He believed that public policy should be judged not by rhetoric or intent, but by its impact on the lives of the poorest. That conviction runs through every page of this report.

The Nicolson Report: The Poverty Scandal sets out the reality the UK now faces. Millions of people are living with unnecessary financial hardship. Families are pushed into insecurity not because resources are lacking, but because choices have been made — repeatedly — to tolerate a system that over-taxes work, under-taxes wealth, and under-invests in the public services and infrastructure that make prosperity possible.

This report is not about blame. It is about responsibility — and about evidence. Poverty benefits no one. It damages health, weakens productivity, increases pressure on public services and limits opportunity for the next generation. We all pay the price.

But the message of this report is also one of hope. Poverty is not inevitable. With a fairer and more modern tax system, and with sustained investment in education, health, social care and infrastructure, hardship can be reduced and prosperity shared more widely. Wealth in this country has been built on shared foundations. Those foundations now need renewing.

This report calls for bold and determined leadership — grounded in evidence, focused on outcomes, and willing to challenge comfortable assumptions. Ending the poverty scandal is not an act of charity. It is one of the most important economic choices the UK can make.

To readers of this report — policymakers, campaigners, taxpayers and citizens — the call to action is simple: do not accept poverty as inevitable. Question policies that deepen hardship. Demand fairness in how we raise and use public money. Support solutions that prevent poverty rather than manage its consequences.

Paul Nicolson believed that change begins when people refuse to look away.

This report asks you to do the same.

Tom Burgess

CEO, Taxpayers Against Poverty

I commend the report for your attention and note that many of the points it makes are ones discussed at length in this blog.   Taken with the huge amount of information in the reports published by The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the anti-poverty campaign of The Big Issue led by John Bird (co-founder with Gordon Roddick) there is a solid body of evidence and a determination to progress campaigning to make systemic change to the policies that cause and sustain poverty.  

Sadly we live in a society that, to echo the words of John Kenneth Galbraith, has the means but lacks the will to tackle poverty issues.  It is a matter of political choice.  As a follower of the teaching attributed to Jesus I am of the opinion that campaigning against the underlying causes of poverty should be an imperative for churches.  Policy makers must be challenged in robust terms. We need to go beyond providing palliatives and mitigation to the plight of those in poverty or destitution.  We should demand radical change.  Shades of Jurgen Moltmann and Gustavo Gutierrez!

*  https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/30/the-rev-paul-nicolson-a-campaigning-life-in-letters

*  https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/10/the-rev-paul-nicolson-obituary