The collapse of the UK’s social contract is leaving millions of low-income families “surviving not living” and forced to endure unacceptable levels of poverty, according to an independent cross-party report.
The Poverty Strategy Commission, which seeks to forge a new national political consensus on reducing poverty, and which includes former ministers from the three main parties, says poverty levels are too high and hardship is becoming more extreme. It warns a “more of the same” approach to poverty in the future will fail.
It estimates the broad annual cost of significantly reducing poverty in the UK at £36bn – equivalent to £6,000 a year for 6 million families in poverty – a figure reached through a combination of benefits and wage increases, and investment to lower housing and energy costs, and improved health services.
The interim report of the commission, published on Tuesday, seeks to put poverty reduction back on the party political agenda before the next general election. It is concerned at the lack of urgency from the two main parties over the scale and nature of poverty, and society’s failure to offer adequate protection to its poorest.
The report says not only have overall relative poverty rates barely budged at between 21% and 24% over the past two decades, but even in areas where some progress was made – such as reducing pensioner and single-parent poverty – they have started to go into reverse.
It also highlights the rise in the proportion of people in poverty experiencing “deep poverty” – measured as at least 50% below the poverty line. It says nearly a third (31%) of those officially in hardship are in deep poverty and struggling to buy sufficient food, energy and clothes, pay rent and meet other everyday bills.
While the government often implies there is a “social contract” between state and citizen, the commission says in practice this does not exist, noting that the social security system routinely fails to protect people from poverty even when they are working, are unable to work through disability, or are pensioners.
Its interim recommendations include a 5% uplift in benefits and wages for people in poverty, outside any inflation increases, although it says poverty cannot be tackled by raising incomes alone, and highlights housing and childcare costs, the additional costs of disability, and energy and travel costs as areas to be addressed.
The chair of the commission, Lady Philippa Stroud, is a Tory peer and former political adviser to Iain Duncan Smith when he was welfare secretary between 2010 and 2016. She put the commission together to try to forge a new political momentum for tackling poverty, and attempt to engineer broad agreement over how it should be done.
She said: “Poverty in the UK is too high and the experiences of many people in poverty are now getting worse. Governments of all colours have worked hard to change that picture, but as a society, we have failed to make significant progress.”
The commission, which has been meeting for 18 months, includes the Conservative MP and former work and pensions secretary Stephen Crabb, the former Liberal Democrat MP and coalition minister David Laws, and the Labour MP and former Treasury minister Stephen Timms. Thinktanks from left and right, charities including the Trussell Trust food bank network, and academic experts are also members.
The commission member Miatta Fahnbulleh, the head of the New Economics Foundation, said: “Everyone in 21st-century Britain should be able to afford the basics they need to avoid poverty. It’s shameful that instead millions of families are on the edge of destitution.”
She added: “In recent years, we’ve made little progress in tackling the causes of poverty: low wages, an inadequate social security system and sky-rocketing housing costs. As the commission shows, the solutions are there to tackle these issues. What we need now is the collective will.”
The final report of the commission is expected to be published at the end of the year.
Mel Stride, the secretary of state for work and pensions said: “We have helped nearly two million people out of absolute poverty after housing costs since 2010, including 400,000 children, and it’s absolutely right we have a joined-up approach to ensure this downward trend continues.
“Our record financial support - benefits and pensions up by 10.1%, £900 in direct Cost of Living payments to some of the most financially vulnerable, and our boost to the National Living Wage – has cushioned those most in need from the worst of the cost of living pressures and we will continue to support them.
“I look forward to reading the commission’s full report next year, and continuing with a collaborative approach across government and society to reduce poverty and support the most vulnerable.”
• This article was amended on 5 September 2023 to add a comment from Mel Stride, the secretary of state for work and pensions.
