{"id":3169,"date":"2022-03-31T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewitnessexet.wpengine.com\/?p=3169"},"modified":"2022-03-31T02:58:07","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T02:58:07","slug":"opinion-sunak-is-leading-britain-into-a-decade-of-destitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/?p=3169","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Sunak is leading Britain into a decade of destitution"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Featured Image: ‘The Chancellor Rishi Sunak signing the devolution deal for West Yorkshire<\/a>‘ by HM Treasury<\/a> from Flickr <\/a>is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0<\/a> (link to license deed<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As April fast approaches, so do the terrible economic policies of Chancellor Rishi Sunak. The cost-of-living crisis is taking its toll on the poorest in society. Millions are being plunged into poverty and destitution. According<\/a> to \u2018Money Saving Expert\u2019 Martin Lewis: \u201cWe have a real, absolute poverty issue going to come in the UK, with food banks oversubscribed, and debt crisis agencies do not have any tools.\u201d More than a decade of Tory austerity has hollowed out the core of the welfare state. The social safety net is now a mythological creature \u2014 one the affluent of Britain tell themselves exists to justify their moral indifference. The levels of poverty in Britain today are a scar on this nation\u2019s conscience, and the government\u2019s economic recovery plan needs to be one that addresses this. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did we arrive at this tragic state? Gordon Brown has many political legacies. Most significantly though was his commitment to reducing child poverty. At the turn of the century he promised<\/a> to abolish child poverty in a generation. Between 1998 and 2011, his work managed to lift 800,000<\/a> children out of deprivation. This was not only thanks to his economic policies, but also his strong commitment to the issue \u2014\u00a0which culminated in the Child Poverty Act 2010<\/a>. The legislation set out national targets for child poverty levels and ensured strategies were put in place to achieve them. Two months later he was ousted by the electorate and the Coalition Government were brought in to wreck what he had built. The Tories\u2019 brutal welfare reforms and blatant disregard for the poorest in society led poverty to skyrocket. In 2016, unable to legally comply, they scrapped<\/a> the targets set out in the Child Poverty Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has led us to where we are today<\/a>: 4.3 million children in Britain live in relative poverty, making up almost a third of all young people. An estimated 49%<\/a> of children living in single parent families are in poverty and 75% of all deprived kids live in a household with at least one person in employment. Once, poverty was equated with joblessness \u2014 not anymore. Endless tax rises, as well as curbs to employment rights and union powers, have resulted in the simple fact that a job doesn\u2019t guarantee the bills can be paid. Even in the city of Exeter, between the large townhouses and behind the spectre of affluent Exet-ah culture, 13.6%<\/a> of children are living in deprived households.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it is the events of recent months that have exacerbated this dire situation. The energy crisis \u2014 already horrific \u2014 has reached new heights due to the war in Ukraine. Energy bills continue to climb ever higher, and the price of fuel has become extortionate. Meanwhile, fossil fuel companies announce profits<\/a> of billions of pounds. Money which isn\u2019t being invested into further production to ease the crisis, but is instead lining the pockets of shareholders and directors. The rising energy prices are having a knock-on effect on prices across the economy. Inflation<\/a> is set to reach its highest level in forty years. The cost-of-living crisis is being dragged along with it. Living standards are set to fall<\/a> by the sharpest within-year decline since records began in the 1950s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the chancellor doing to resolve this horrendous crisis? His mini-budget on Wednesday set out a series of measures<\/a> that were expected to boost the economic situation and minimise the impact for the working poor. His actions, however, were wholly inadequate and inequitable. Sunak has decided that taxes should be raised and that this burden should be carried by ordinary hard-working families up and down the country. Despite policies<\/a> such as the 5p fuel duty cut and the 1p reduction in income tax to give a perception of a true-blue \u2018tax cutting chancellor\u2019, the overall tax burden<\/a> is rising by 3%. The measures announced in the autumn, such as the income tax threshold freeze and the National Insurance hike, accompanied by high inflation are what is pushing up tax receipts. Meanwhile<\/a>, welfare payments are falling, as is public sector pay \u2014\u00a0despite the relatively stable employment figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The treasury does not have any sincere desire to improve the growing poverty crisis. It is not credible arguments about fiscal responsibility or economic theory governing Sunak\u2019s decisions, but simply a disregard for the horrific situation in which citizens live. Millions of families are on the breadline, millions more are making difficult decisions about whether to heat their homes or buy food. Britain is heading into a decade of destitution not seen for years. A decade that will scar a generation. A decade of rising crime, declining public health, falling education standards and general social upheaval. All the result of political failure.<\/p>\n

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Featured Image: ‘The Chancellor Rishi Sunak signing the devolution deal for West Yorkshire‘ by HM Treasury from Flickr is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":3171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,12,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-british","category-latest","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}