23,000 children are living with poverty in Newcastle upon Tyne; 53% of households with children in them depend to some extent on Universal Credit. The ‘two – child rule’ affects 14,000 children in the NE, 60% of households with children in them have zero savings and over 10,000 owe debts to Universal Credit that are deducted from their meagre benefits.
These are some of the atrocious statistics quoted by Amanda Bailey, the Director of the North East Child Poverty Commission at the Heaton Labour Party Open Meeting on poverty held on 13 February in the Corner House Function Room. They are shocking and no matter what your politics are, left, right, centre or sick of all of them, those statistics expose a terrible truth, that this government has failed its people. That some people are one step from starvation but wholly exposed to the terror of hunger, humiliation, and feel hopeless and helpless to do anything to change things, they merely keep going until they break.
The Heaton Labour Party open meeting on poverty
Amanda said that she knew the reality of the situation was worse, as billions of benefits are unclaimed and families and communities help their own friends and strangers alike to get through the week. Meals are cooked, clothes are washed, kids are looked after and neighbours, grandparents and all do what they can. When a single mother who works three part-time insecure jobs neglects her child, (and in the kindest way, some “neglect” by some standards is almost inevitable), and the child is removed to council social care, it will cost up to £1,500 per week when £50 per week to the mother would have made all the difference. The financial costs of poverty are atrocious too. One neglected child, taken away from his family, alienated and alone can cost many hundreds of victims, many thousands of damage done and almost no benefit for society. If we raise wolves by neglect we cannot complain about the pack predating on our streets when they emerge, educated by squalor and opportunity.
Karen Kilgour, the Councillor who leads on poverty for Newcastle City Council described how her department had the ability to get small grants for washing machines to people who cared for others, to stop kids going to school in dirty clothes. She described how parents would keep their kids off school trips, as they didn’t have enough shoes for the kids, and how a bulk purchase of cheap wellies allowed those kids a day out. She described the small initiatives, the small things could be done to ameliorate the worse predations of the destruction of local government finances and the poverty of the people. The initiatives to prevent, support and campaign to end this misery one day.
Quincy Raymond, from the CWU and TUC Young Workers Forum provided some enthusiasm for friendship and encapsulated the positivity that hope, ambition and decency could prevail over cruel monetarist algorithms and Cllr. Nick Kemp, Leader of Newcastle City Council, introduced the meeting and stayed to listen and contribute, being especially interested in how the NE Mayoral Authority had some budget and power over child poverty and looked forward to seeing how this could work.
Change is needed like never before
This was a good meeting, well attended, despite it being held on pancake night, and serious about the need to concentrate on the political agenda for positive change. Maybe, after 14 years of austerity, there is hope and I went with an open mind but I was prepared for disappointment. Happily there was none of the philosophical posturing or performative factional orthodoxy that I had seen in years gone by, this meeting was about facts, people, their situation and how change could be delivered. Change is needed like never before, but first we have to stop our governments, central, regional and municipal doing stupid things and we all have a list. Mine was headed by the asking that our council cease to give £50,000 grants to evangelical churches to administer food pantries.
Getting food from a foodbank is a bad enough experience, no matter how kind the intention and implementation is; accepting food from your enemies, from people who deny gay people, people of a different religion and those, like me with none, any kind of full recognition, is disgraceful. But let’s hope that people with full bellies, decent education, housing, transport and prospects will tell organisations which prey on vulnerability where to go.
Austerity
Similarly, the pudgy smiling suburban hypocrisy of the Liberal Democrat Tory coalition, as they forced austerity on the vulnerable which killed some, broke many will pollute their names for evermore. Their fake public school diversity where sexuality and colour may look different, but accents and backgrounds similar remind us that this level of ignorant cruelty is unnatural and abhorrent because it’s bad for everyone whether rich, poor, black or white.
Austerity kills the general consumer and this means the bony fingers of the people at the bottom of the pile will reach the wallets of the wealthy eventually. The middle classes will shop at Aldi and enjoy it until they realise they can’t afford Tesco Extra, let alone Marks and Spencer or god forbid Waitrose. It leads to gated communities, special shops, shanty towns, dictatorships, exploitation and for most a terrified existence where crime, pornography, drugs and violence rule. Most die earlier, colder with a few bad teeth.
Austerity kills business because it pollutes our cities with beggars who deter passing trade and reduce property value. Someone on twitter pointed out that saying the internet kills the High Street seems to ignore the vitality of European city retail. They have the internet there too so maybe UK austerity, aggravated by Brexit and government pillaging of municipal finances, is more to blame.
The whole panel quoted many examples of community resistance to austerity, the mutual aid groups, the foodbanks, the school breakfast clubs, the temporary and the institutional. They applauded the fine spirit which inspired all of this, but wondered if more coordination could deliver better results.
The ‘right to food’ campaign
Following this collaborative challenge, I said that we had so far, failed to inspire the ‘right to food’ campaign to be part of the national political agenda and wondered if this could have the potential to develop into an answer. That it would need contributions from all involved and concerned to develop into the policy that the people deserve. Newcastle City Council and many others all over the country had committed to the ‘right to food’ campaign, which they had passed a resolution of support, in March 2021. That was an initiative drawn up by my friend Ian Byrne MP of Liverpool West Derby and the Fans Supporting Foodbanks Collective of which me and my colleagues of NUFC Fans Foodbank are a component. At the time Ian told me that as he went to see the government with Sami Chakrobahti that she said it was “such a good idea that Boris would steal it”, and Ian saying that was fine by him.
Right to food has five components but aims to solve many issues of hunger, poverty, families, isolation, cohesion, health, education and progress very simply by feeding all kids at school, keeping the kitchens open for the community at night, ensuring the benefits and incomes are sufficient to buy enough food and making fresh food available in all locations where people live with an independent regulatory body to enforce it. Invest in our kids, our communities and their education, comfort and quality of life and recognise that if kids are legally compelled to attend school under threat of ultimate imprisonment for parents if they don’t, that they should be fed whilst there. That investment yields the benefit of better educated people earning more money able to spend more on business and allowing a better life for all. This is as valuable for the kids in Eton as for Heaton, or Byker or Basingstoke or wherever. It’s about investing in what the economists call “human capital”, or the obvious point that a well-fed, educated, healthy population attracts and rewards inward investment as surely as a starving, stupid, sick society deters and destroys it.
It is about time for hope
Conventional conservatism votes for “whatever is good for business”; I can’t imagine they would object to anything recommended above. People will still have to work hard and they’ll still have the ability to get rich, think as they want, be what they want. Now the Labour Party is on the threshold of national, regional and municipal power, it is about time for hope. They are lowering expectations as they will surely hope to exceed reduced those hopes. Right to food is something that can deliver that hope and improve every facet of life in our entire country and starts with food provided at school; breakfast, dinner and tea; then community suppers. It could transform our country; it’s what the Labour Party accomplished with the NHS and now needs to translate into a 21st century of delayed hope. It’s about time that we had some and a better society of dignity too. Let’s hope that the sadness and horror that the children of our city, region and country are suffering now is abolished soon and for all time. Get this government gone.
