A general view of housing in Scarborough, North Yorkshire
MILLIONS of people are spending a fourth Christmas in “Dickensian conditions” due to fuel poverty, a damning report revealed today.
Warm This Winter found that 16 per cent of adults, equal to 8.8 million people, in Britain live in cold, damp homes, exposed to the health risks of living in fuel poverty.
The campaign group has warned that the government’s Warm Homes Plan will come too late for one in 10 people who have frequently experienced dangerous mould levels in their homes this year.
Poorly insulated homes risk damp and mould spreading, which the NHS warns can lead to respiratory issues, infections, allergies and asthma.
Such conditions can also increase the risk of heart disease, strokes and other severe health problems.
Cold homes can cause and worsen respiratory conditions, cardiovascular diseases, poor mental health, dementia and hypothermia as well as cause and slow recovery from injury.
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End Fuel Poverty Coalition co-ordinator Simon Francis said: “The sheer numbers of people living in cold, damp homes this winter should send alarm bells throughout Westminster.
“These shocking figures have hardly changed since last year and with energy bills heading upwards again in January, the situation is now critical for the government.”
Finance Secretary Shona Robison during a visit to Logan Energy Limited in Edinburgh ahead of the publication of the Scottish Budget, December 4, 2024
SCOTTISH Finance Secretary Shona Robison announced that the two-child cap on benefits will be scrapped in Scotland as she pledged record spending for both the NHS and councils in next year’s Budget today.
The moved to scrap the cap would lift 15,000 children out of poverty, Ms Robison said.
She told MSPs as she outlined her draft Budget plans in Holyrood: “Be in no doubt that the cap will be scrapped.”
Ms Robison slammed the UK Labour government’s inaction on a “pernicious” policy considered to be a key driver of child poverty by organisations such as the Poverty Alliance.
She challenged the UK government to work with them and share the necessary information to “build a system” to mitigate it “as early as we can in 2026.”
Stocks of food at the Trussell Trust Brent Foodbank, Neasden, London
A COALITION of 120 children’s charities today called for the complete eradication of child poverty in 20 years, increasing pressure for government to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
The End Child Poverty Coalition set out eight tests it said should be met by the government’s taskforce strategy if it is to succeed in tackling and ending child poverty.
Among them was that government must ultimately aim to halve child poverty in the next 10 years, and completely eradicate it in the next 20.
The coalition also said the two-child limit to benefit payments must be scrapped, estimating this could immediately lift around 300,000 children out of poverty, and that “further fundamental reform” to the social security system is needed.
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End Child Poverty Coalition chair Joseph Howes said: “Child poverty is a blight on our society and is also completely avoidable.
“If the government is serious about tackling and ultimately eradicating child poverty in this country, it needs to be bold and ambitious in its investments, including immediately scrapping the two-child limit to benefit payments.
The temperature control of a radiator in a domestic home
DEMANDS for more energy support for vulnerable households intensified today as temperatures are expected to plummet this week.
Some areas rose above 16°C on Sunday, but the Met Office forecast a sharp drop by last night, with temperatures potentially plunging to -8°C in parts of Scotland.
Meteorologists warned that the cold spell would continue tomorrow, with parts of England becoming as chilly as -3°C.
The cold snap comes just over a month after energy regulator raised the price cap by 10 per cent, while 6.5 million households remain trapped in fuel poverty.
Peter Smith of National Energy Action said: “Millions of people will endure these freezing conditions at the same time as unaffordable energy bills and unmanageable energy debt.
“At this exceptionally difficult time for vulnerable households, we see a desperate need for a larger energy discount or a new social tariff to provide long-term protection.
THE government issued its first cold weather alert this year, while millions continue to ration their energy use to dangerous levels.
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National Energy Action’s Peter Smith said: “With energy bills rising since October and far less support available nationally this winter, millions of people are already rationing their energy use to dangerous levels or getting deeper into debt trying to keep warm.
“Sadly, even this brief cold spell will be a threat to people’s health and worse and will create further extreme hardship for millions of households.”
Jeremy Corbyn, MPs and politicians from the Green party, Plaid Cymru and others respond to the budget.
Labour’s first budget punishes the “working people” they claim to support. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves promised to deliver real change to the electorate, after 14 years of Tory rule. This week, they have broken that promise. This budget is austerity by another name.
While we welcome the government’s decision to invest in school and hospital buildings, it is extremely disappointing that these investments have been undermined by a swathe of public sector cuts, cruel attacks on the worst off, and a dogmatic refusal to redistribute wealth and power. These are not “tough choices” for government ministers, but for ordinary people who are forced to choose between heating their home and putting food on the table.
Labour is raising defence expenditure to 2.5% of GDP while telling us there is no money to lift 250,000 children out of poverty. This is a lie. There is plenty of money – it’s just in the wrong hands. The richest 1% in the UK hold more wealth than 70% of Britons. By refusing to impose a wealth tax, this government has chosen to force vulnerable communities to pay the price for years of economic failure, instead of making the richest pay their fair share. Labour’s first budget shows us whose side they’re on.
Years of austerity and privatisation have decimated our public services and pushed millions into poverty, disproportionately impacting women, people of colour and disabled people. Making millions of children, working, retired and disabled people poorer damages our entire economy and stretches our public services. An austerity economy is a false economy.
We, along with nearly 100 progressive Independent and Green politicians across the country, are calling on the Labour government to:1) introduce wealth taxes; 2) abolish the two-child benefit cap and stop attacking welfare recipients; 3) reverse cuts to winter fuel; 4) restore the £2 bus cap; and 5) invest in a Green New Deal.
We refuse to believe that child poverty, mass hunger and homelessness are inevitable in the sixth largest economy in the world. A progressive movement is growing up and down the country, demanding a real alternative to this race to the bottom between Labour and the Tories, which has seen the new government perpetuate decades of austerity and rampant corporate greed.
The Tories’ collapse allowed Labour to come to power with the lowest vote share ever won by any single-party majority government. Labour haemorrhaging votes to progressive independents and Greens in their heartlands should be a lesson to this government: you are wrong to believe that progressive voters have nowhere else to go. Our movement is growing every day – and you ignore the demand for a real alternative at your peril.
Jeremy Corbyn MP Independent,Carla Denyer MPGreen partyco-leader, Adrian Ramsay MP Green party co-leader, Sian Berry MP Green party, Ben Lake MPPlaid Cymru,Ann Davies MP Plaid Cymru, Liz Saville Roberts MP Plaid Cymru, Llinos Medi MP Plaid Cymru,Zack Polanski Green party deputy leader and London assembly member , Leanne Mohamad Independent candidate for Ilford North, Jamie Driscoll Former North of Tyne mayor, Andrew Feinstein Former ANC MPand Independent candidate for Holborn and St Pancras, Leanne WoodFormer leader, Plaid Cymru, Beth Winter Former Labour MPfor Cynon Valley, Hilary SchanChair, We Deserve Betterand Independent councillor in Worthing, Anthony SlaughterWales Green partyleader
This blog has previously experienced copyright take down notices. I am republishing this letter in full on the basis that the original authors have and retain rights of copyright and that they have indicated that they wanted it published by submitting it to the Guardian newspaper.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
These measures will not affect current claimants, but they will impact those applying for the first time from next year, and anyone who comes off the benefit and then later reapplies for it or whose circumstances change
Hundreds of thousands of people with health conditions could miss out on financial support after the chancellor confirmed plans to tighten the disability benefits system.
This is an assessment which people with health conditions and disabilities undergo to determine their capability for work and if they will get an extra amount of universal credit.
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Previous figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) showed that 457,000 people will face lower benefits or higher work search conditions by 2028/2029 as a result of the reforms, which are expected to save the government around £3bn.
Disability charities have called the plans “devastating”. Richard Kramer, chief executive of Sense, said: “The government’s decision today is deeply disturbing for disabled people. They have chosen to continue the previous government’s harmful plans to reduce access to benefits.
“This risks undermining the wellbeing of disabled people, and the consequences could be devastating. Disabled households are living in crisis, their current welfare benefits barely cover the essentials and spiralling food and energy costs have pushed many into debt and despair.
“But instead of choosing to give disabled people proper financial support and beginning to transform lives, the government has played into the dangerous narrative that disabled people should be forced to work and tightened the work capability assessment. They did this knowing that not all disabled people can work.”
The DWP previously confirmed that the reforms will cut the number of people due to be put onto the highest tier of incapacity benefits by more than 424,000 people, equating to a loss of almost £400 every month per person.
“This contemptible measure is purely about saving money at disabled people’s expense. It will force still more disabled people into poverty,” Kramer said. “We are demanding that this dismal decision is urgently reversed. We need the government to realise that benefits are a lifeline and disabled people need more financial support not less.
The navy’s aircraft carriers in Portsmouth. (Photo: Jonathan Brady / Alamy)
If chancellor Rachel Reeves is serious about public finances, she must stop the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers causing a black hole in the military budget.
The navy’s aircraft carriers in Portsmouth. (Photo: Jonathan Brady / Alamy)
As Labour presents the public with large tax rises and cuts in services, Britain’s armed forces are wasting billions of pounds of public money on projects with no practical use in present or potential future conflicts.
It would be nothing short of a scandal if they are given more taxpayers’ money to spend.
Prime candidates for the chop, and an immediate target for the government’s promised Office for the Value of Money, should be the two aircraft carriers: HMS Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales – the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy.
Independent analysts are starting to question the future of the carriers, something that was unthinkable not so long ago. There is speculation that at least one could be mothballed.
Shortly after he retired as chief of the defence staff, General (now Lord) David Richards described the ships as “unaffordable vulnerable metal cans”. They were “behemoths”, he told me.
THE Labour leadership faced demands today to tax the rich instead of inflicting more painful spending cuts in its Budget on Wednesday.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has warned that her fiscal announcement will involve “difficult decisions” because of a £22 billion “black hole” left by the Tories in the nation’s finances, which has since led her to talk of finding £40-50bn in spending cuts and tax rises.
Today Labour MP Richard Burgon presented a 50,000-strong petition in Parliament calling for wealth taxes as an alternative.
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The petition calls for a 2 per cent wealth tax on assets over £10 million, which could raise £24bn a year.
It also suggested equalising capital gains tax with income tax rates and ending state subsidies for fossil fuel giants, which could raise another £21bn.
Ms Reeves stated that the upcoming Budget will focus on “strivers,” invoking the rhetoric of austerity architect George Osborne, though a speech by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer today stressed Labour would raise taxes to invest in public services.
Labour MP John McDonnell tweeted: “Simple request to whoever is now running Labour’s communications strategy, drop the ‘strivers’ language as it inevitably has led in the past to reference to ‘skivers’ prefacing attacks on welfare benefit claimants and cuts in social security support.”
Over 120 charities under the End Child Poverty Coalition have called on the Chancellor to use the Budget to finally ditch the two-child benefit cap.
The coalition says that doing so would lift 300,000 children out of poverty.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Age UK has published its own Equality Impact Assessment of the Government’s cut to eligibility for the winter fuel payment.
Four in every five pensioners living below or just above the poverty line will lose the winter fuel payment under planned benefit cuts, according to a charity.
Age UK said its analysis suggested that 10.7 million UK pensioners will lose the benefit, of whom almost one in four (23%) live in poverty – with a household income of less than 60% of the median – or just above the poverty line.
The charity found that 80% – or 800,0000 – of UK pensioners aged 80 and over living in poverty or just above the poverty line will no longer receive the payment, as well as 78% – or 1.1 million – of pensioners with a disability living in the same circumstances.
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According to the Government’s own equality analysis, an estimated 780,000 pensioners still eligible to receive the winter fuel payment will lose it under planned cuts.
In a document last month, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) also said that more than two thirds – around 71% – of those with a disability and 83% of those aged 80 or over would miss out.
