I think that when Jesus used the phrase he probably meant something different.
The British Parliament is currently debating what is sexily known as the Benefit Uprating Bill. Basically, this puts into law what the Chancellor announced in the 2012 Autumn Statement: to limit the rate at which most key benefits and tax credits are increased by just 1% for the next three years. This happens to be well below the expected rate of inflation.
Put to one side for a moment the conundrum that never gets addressed, viz why the rich need to be incentivised by keeping more wealth whilst the poor need to be incentivised by being made poorer. (This simply means that society pays for the consequences in other ways.) What this 'benefit uprating' means is:
- costs of living are expected to rise faster than support increases to cover these additional costs;
- based on average earnings for their profession, a single-parent primary school teacher, with two children stands to lose £424 a year by 2015. A nurse with two children could lose £424, and an army second lieutenant with three children could lose £552 a year. (Parents affected include an estimated 300,000 nurses and midwives, 150,000 primary school teachers and 40,000 armed forces personnel.)
- coming on top of a number of other wide-ranging cuts to benefits and tax credits for children and families, (for example, with the 1% cap coming on top of previously announced freezes) by 2015-16 Child Benefit will have increased by just 2% in the course of half a decade.
It is the impact on children that should cause us most concern as this is disproportionate. The Government’s own impact assessment suggests that around 30% of all households will be affected, but 87% of families with children will be affected, including 95% of single parent families. The Children's Society estimates that 11.5 million children are in families affected and notes that whilst the Bill will affect children and families from all walks of life, children in the poorest families will be affected the most. The government’s impact assessment shows that about 60% of the savings from the uprating cap will come from the poorest third of households. Only 3% will come from the wealthiest third.
No surprise, then, that the Children's Society and other concerned parties are urging a re-think – that benefits and tax credits paid on behalf of children should be removed from the scope of the Benefit Uprating Bill. This would mean removing benefits including Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit, and child additions within Universal Credit.
The demand from food banks is increasing alarmingly. Schools are increasingly reporting children beginning the day without having had anything to eat. As I said in response to a request from my local Bradford newspaper:
Child poverty does not just make life a little bit miserable for a child now; it affects the whole of their life, their physical growth, their education, aspiration and life opportunities. This is bad for children, families, schools and society. And it is a scandal in a so-called civilised society. We must ask serious questions about our priorities and government ministers must be made aware of the human consequences of policies made behind desks.
The figures for Bradford can be seen here. What statistics don't show is the complex of ways in which childhood poverty is destructive of so much and of so many. This isn't just about welfare or 'scroungers' – it impacts on all of us and needs some serious attention. Mahatma Gandhi was once asked on his arrival at Heathrow Airport what he thought of western civilisation; he responded: “I think it would be a very good idea.” If our civilisation is measured by our treatment of the most vulnerable in our society, then we have questions to ask about our priorities.
And, while this reality bites, the government is also thinking of changing the way child poverty is calculated. You can read the Church of England's response here, summarised in this statement by the Bishop of Leicester:
The real issue is committing to, and resourcing, an effective long-term strategy to tackle child poverty, rather than finding alternative ways of measuring it.
Posted with Blogsy
February 21, 2013 at 5:06 pm
And all this in the week that NICE has recommended that lesbian women should be given free NHS treatment to have children….whatever happened to family values and making hard-working families the priority?
February 21, 2013 at 7:52 pm
I can remember the WRVS childrens holiday scheme from the early seventies. These children were genuinely needy wretched children like urchins , with out a decent fitting pair of shoes, and no clean underwear, and VERY undernourished. Their poor parents were living on the edge in far different social impoverished circumstances than nowadays. They were English… unbelievable to know that there was such suffering and poverty.
February 21, 2013 at 9:34 pm
Let’s put the T&A figures in visible terms. Imagine Valley Parade, absolutely full, with a half-mile long queue of people trying to get in.
That’s what 28,000-odd Bradford children in poverty looks like.
You’re right +Nick, it is a scandal…
February 22, 2013 at 12:01 am
. . . Or understanding that children have inherent worth, as also do the elderly. In a sense without this assumption, all societies tend towards the marginalization of the uneconomic
To briefly come back to the conundrum about incentivising the rich, the erroneous presupposition used to justify this is that they are the wealth creators, and that but for them we would all be poor. There ‘value’ is thus assured. Children and old people are merely economic burdens, as is anyone who needs help
Before we can develop better strategies, we need a better story, about who we are
I wonder where we might find one . . .
February 22, 2013 at 9:38 am
[…] final at Wembley (on Sunday) at the same time as recognising the shocking child poverty realities I referred to yesterday… when Liverpool have just gone out of the Europa League on an away goal… and Suggs is […]
February 22, 2013 at 12:58 pm
I have worked for many years in child protection visiting the homes of the poorest members of our society and inviting them into mine. I know and like the people we are talking about.
I lack neither first hand knowledge nor sympathy.
During this period we have as a society allocated a lot of money to try and
” end poverty” – and so we should – but it has not worked in many instances. There is more going on here than money can buy.
There are certain basic rules for successful families which are well known and don’t cost a penny.
Attend and finish school
Don’t abuse drugs/alcohol
Don’t have multiple sexual partners
Get married before you have children.
No matter which stratum of society you come from, apply those rules and with near certainty your children will not be “poor”. They certainly won’t end up in Care barring ill health intervening. That is a separate issue.
Who is taking responsible for making this known?
We are all so scared of seeming “uncool” or judgmental that these plain truths remain under societal radar.
I was always very straight with my clients sometimes pointing out directly that ” you will do anything to keep your kids -except the very thing guaranteed to do so”. Such tough love kept many families together once they stopped relying on Social Workers and started addressing the real issues seriously.
I think we need to be similarly blunt. It is actually uncaring not to do so.
February 22, 2013 at 3:35 pm
It was only a whisker over a century ago that the Macmllan sisters pioneered the school meals service in Bradford- a rock-bottom priced meal containing a sufficient and balanced diet to wipe out the scourge of rickets and other diseases against which my grandmother struggled as a nurse in choice areas like Paper Hall Court, almost cheek-by-jowl with the Cathedral. Those meals were still 5d (about 2p) a time when I started as a pupil at St Barnabas school after WW2. Now the meals are expensive, far from balanced nutriionally, and passed on by those who need them most. How long before these vitamin-deficiency diseases again become endemic in Badford and across the land? Quos deus vult perdere prius dementat (to get the quotation right!)