There Is No Post-Brexit ‘Poverty Plan’

The government seemingly has no specific ‘poverty plan’ for a no-deal Brexit, despite rising destitution brought on by welfare reform, reports 24 Housing.

Instead, DWP minister Justin Tomlinson fell back on ‘the system’ in an evasive written answer to a Commons question from Labour’s Sharon Hodgson – who asked if the DWP has plans for a hardship fund to help those on the lowest incomes in the event of no deal. Tomlinson – branded flippant by the Commons Work and Pensions Committee and who had to apologise to Parliament for errors he made during a debate on the benefits freeze – said: “The welfare system provides a strong safety net. A system of hardship payments, benefit advances, and budgeting loans will be available for those who need them.”

The response is read as government having no plan for the poorest, beyond existing provision in the event of economic collapse following a no-deal Brexit – or even a Brexit with some semblance of a deal. Former Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd acknowledged destitution was on the rise with her support for thawing the benefit freeze – even in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The government, however, rejected calls to end the freeze in this year’s Spring Statement, and expectations that ministers could end the freeze next year have been thrown into doubt after then Chancellor Philip Hammond warned that a no-deal Brexit could blow a £90bn black hole in the UK’s public finances.

Ahead of the Tory leadership election, Rudd said she could make a “strong case” for government finding the estimated £1.5bn needed to lift working age benefits in line with inflation. A number of reports over recent months have exposed the extent of UK poverty with destitution on the rise. The latest, from Citizen’s Advice, finds more than a third of claimants hit by the benefits freeze have less than £100 a month to live on after they have paid rent and utility and covered the cost of living.

Poverty grants charity Buttle UK sampled support professionals, such as health visitors and social workers, with three-quarters of respondents saying they had seen an increase in the numbers of families they regularly worked with who experienced destitution and were in need of basic financial support. The Social Metrics Commission also reported seven million people, including 2.3 million children, are affected by “persistent” poverty, meaning they were not only in poverty but had been for at least two of the previous three years.

According to the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, of 14.3 million in the UK in poverty, 4.5 million were in deep poverty – a third of all those on the breadline, and 7% of the population.

Although overall rates of poverty have changed relatively little since 2000-01, certain groups – such as children, children of lone parents, and pensioners – have had hardship levels rise since 2013 as a result of austerity measures such as the benefit freeze, reversing earlier downward trends. There has been a dramatic rise in child poverty in families with three or more children, up 9% since 2013-14. This is in part a result of policies, such as the benefit freeze, that penalise larger families. But the figures do not capture the impact of the two-child benefit limit introduced in 2017, which is likely to push levels even higher.

The UK has seen headline increases in relative poverty over recent years, with an estimated 1.5 million people UK-wide experiencing destitution in 2017, as defined by at least two of six applicable measures. These include eating fewer than two meals a day for two or more days or as a weekly income after housing costs of £70 for a single adult or £140 for a couple with children – an amount below which people “cannot meet their core material needs for basic physiological functioning from their own resources”.

Frank Field MP – chair of the Commons Work and Pensions Committee – has warned that the UK’s poorest communities are now “blighted by the constant spectre of destitution”. The government has already said it has no plans to ring-fence the notional allocation for local welfare provision. As reported by 24 Housing last month, the DWP rejected a chance to take 200,000 people out of poverty, by refusing a request to ease the benefits freeze earlier this year – despite overachieving on related savings.