A few weeks ago, a father walked into a charity warehouse, dumped his distraught 16-year-old son and walked away for good, saying he could no longer afford to keep him.
The distress of that teenager cannot be dismissed as an isolated incident: the Lancet, the medical journal, has reported that poverty, as distinct from neglect, parental addictions or domestic violence, is now a principal cause of children being forced into care. Indeed, in a survey of low-income families in Fife, 11% of parents reported that without essential goods provided by local charities, their children might already be in care. By 2025, according to the County Councils Network, there could be as many as 100,000 in care in England alone.
Mental illness and attempted and actual suicides, some of the hidden injuries of poverty that traditionally remain behind closed doors, are also on the rise. But a more visible sign of Britain’s increasing epidemic of poverty is that children are going to school not just ill clad and hungry but unwashed and unclean, with infections now being passed on in classrooms. Schools should not have to double up as launderettes for children’s clothes, but dozens of schools are installing washing machines. As a recent survey of teachers concluded, private hygiene is fast becoming a public health problem, with 71% of those polled expecting this to worsen in the coming months.
Bronchitis, scarlet fever and rickets, caused by low levels of vitamin D and calcium, are joining malnutrition as medical problems doctors are having to address, with about 1,000 cases a year in England and Scotland . Tooth decay among children with no access to an NHS dentist is also on the rise.
In total, 1 million children are considered destitute, lacking access to food, shelter, heating or toiletries, and every night 1.1 million boys and girls sleep on the floor or share a bed. More than 2m households live without at least one essential household appliance, such as a fridge, cooker or washing machine. Four out of five families on universal credit report going without food, turning off the heating and not replacing worn-out clothing. And nearly 3m UK low-income households have run up debt to pay for food, a crisis recognised by King Charles with his food initiative this week.
And it’s not just the safety net that is being shredded; our social fabric is being ripped apart. We are now as divided as we were in Victorian times: the income of our top 0.1% – about £9,615 a week – is 100 times more than that of a universal credit claimant, on £92 a week.
So as we enter one of the hardest winters in modern times, with not just food and fuel but almost every household item more expensive than last year, the autumn statement on 22 November is a defining moment, an acid test of whether poor people will remain invisible to the chancellor. I fear their desperate needs will again be ignored, as Jeremy Hunt is reportedly determined to cut yet another £4bn from the already meagre social security payments of hundreds of thousands of claimants.
Once, charitable giving filled some of the gap, but it has halved in a year, with charities now as hard pressed as the people they serve. It is not that fewer people are giving, but that they are giving less. People with little who gave to those who have nothing have less left to give. And promises that high incomes would trickle down are sadly another neoliberal delusion. While there are many wealthy philanthropists who give generously, the top 1% as a whole typically declare donations averaging just £10 a week, much of which they can set against tax, their generosity extending to just 0.21% of their income.
So, with breadwinners struggling to afford bread, food banks struggling to provide food and the safety net no longer fit for purpose, it is urgent that the one other sector central to our national prosperity – business – steps in. Already, a large number of companies do a great deal, but none can be truly secure when all around them millions are insecure and in despair.
Two years ago, the US Business Roundtable in what was hailed as a revolution in corporate social responsibility, reaffirmed that shareholders had obligations to all their stakeholders, the general public included, and that serving their local communities was integral and not incidental to their raison d’etre. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is no less important to business planning in Britain – one study showed that 52% of businesses now believe a successful CSR strategy can add value.
I have no doubt that at some point in the future companies, which after all enjoy the privilege of limited liability under our laws, will be required by statute to publish accounts that measure not just their profit and loss but their social and environmental impact. To meet this winter’s poverty emergency, we urgently need a new social contract between companies and charities. First, companies have surplus goods that are often wasted, destroyed or sent to landfill. But they can be recycled, as is being done through FareShare, In Kind Direct and food banks. The idea is simple: companies have goods people need, and charities know the people who need them.
Keen to reduce poverty and pollution at the same time, companies led by Amazon are donating to a new initiative: multibanks. These are not just food banks but clothes, furnishings, toiletries, baby and hygiene banks all rolled into one – and as such offer a holistic approach to meeting the needs of a family. Already, for example, the Textile Services Association and Whitbread are offering nearly new bedding that might otherwise be ripped up as rags. If tax law was changed to exempt charities and companies from VAT when goods are distributed free of charge, even more donations could follow. And if the government gave FareShare the £25m it has sought, much more surplus food from farms and shops could be distributed to hungry families.
But so severe is this winter’s crisis that multibanks are pleading with companies to follow the lead of toiletries manufacturer Accrol and agree to donate necessities – such as soap, shampoo, nappies, toothpaste and cleaning products – with foundations and companies sharing the costs to ensure they are free of charge to families in desperate need.
Next week the chancellor should announce a root-and-branch review of universal credit if we are to address Britain’s long-term poverty crisis. But this winter, with a new coalition of compassion between companies and charities, we can at least begin to ease the sorrows of Britain’s left-behind millions, relieve a mounting public health crisis, and at last, as more businesses respond, show we really are all in this together.
Gordon Brown was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010
