Come to my ward in east Birmingham and you’ll find no shortage of pride or ambition. Our city has one of the youngest populations in Europe. It’s powered by huge creative talent and home to vibrant, diverse communities. But, as I spent a sunny Saturday morning holding my regular councillor’s surgery at Glebe Farm library, my constituents told me troubling stories. They spoke of rocketing food prices and rising household bills; of overstretched family budgets that won’t keep pace with the cost of living. They feared the coming colder days. “We just don’t have that kind of money,” a pensioner couple said of impending rises in their energy bill. One young family told me they worried about having to choose between eating or heating this winter.
Birmingham is now taking the extraordinary step of mapping out places in our city where people can keep warm and safe this winter, because they can’t afford to switch on the heating at home. We’re looking at whether we can open up council buildings, and working with community, voluntary and faith groups to find places where people can be welcomed, find warmth and access help and support. These “warm banks” would be unprecedented. I don’t think councils such as mine ever expected to find themselves having serious conversations about implementing such desperate measures. Yet government inactivity may make them a necessity.
While my constituents are desperately worrying about whether they can afford to turn the heating on this winter, ministers have gone Awol. They could be taking action to freeze prices. They could be taxing the excessive profits of the giant energy companies. They could strengthen the feeble regulation of the energy sector. But the government’s wilful refusal to do anything in the face of impending disaster for so many people across our country is the most shameful of betrayals.
Last week, those fears became reality, as Ofgem announced a staggering 80% increase in the energy price cap. For people in my city, this is simply devastating. Six of Birmingham’s 10 parliamentary constituencies are among those with the highest levels of fuel poverty in the country. The city has been marked by grim legacy of a decade of austerity and savage cuts to social security, and many people in our city already struggle to make ends meet. An 80% increase in energy bills will plunge even more Brummie households into absolute poverty. Bluntly, it means that people will die this winter.
It’s left to local councils like mine to try to act when government won’t. It’s not easy, given that our own budgets have shrunk massively thanks to a decade of Whitehall-imposed cuts. But, unlike ministers, we will not stand idly by while our communities face the prospect of freezing this winter.
We’ve already boosted the inadequate household support fund doled out by government earlier in the year, adding a further £1.3m so we can provide hardship grants and get food and other essentials to vulnerable families, children on free school meals and pensioners. That money is again running out fast. Last year, our winter holiday clubs kept 15,000 children fed over the school holidays – and we expect to be supporting even more this year.
Our council is doing all it can to protect Birmingham’s communities from this storm, but only focused national action can end this cost of living crisis. I say to the new prime minister: unless you tackle this crisis with the same urgency and focus that we approached the pandemic, you will see people dying in their own homes this winter. The choice, Prime Minister, is yours. For all our sakes, make the right one.
John Cotton is a Labour councillor in Birmingham
