Martin can see the rise in the cost of living, every time he looks at his energy meter. So what does the cost of living crisis mean for people in poverty?
Martin’s bills have already increased once, and he now faces being charged about £1.50 a day more than a year ago. £1.50 a day. That’s £10.50 a week, £45 a month, £547 a year.
£
0
more every year for energy
“I notice it all the time, and it will go up again in April. It’s very difficult at the moment,” he says. “Very, very difficult.”
Martin lives in Halifax in West Yorkshire, sometimes on his own and sometimes with his son in the house.
He used to be a forklift truck driver, but had to stop working when he suffered nerve damage, and he has long-lasting pain and anxiety.
He has deep first-hand knowledge of living in poverty in the UK, and has been involved in many grassroots campaigns and projects, working to challenge and change unjust systems that trap people in poverty. He knows what helps or hinders people in his situation. Cutting benefits, needless to say, would be immensely unhelpful and severely damaging.
“Take the Universal Credit uplift,” he says. “That extra £20 a week we were getting was really helping – but then that got taken away last autumn and it put me right back down again. It’s very hard now. That £20 a week was about £80 a month and meant a lot. It meant I was not stressing so much and it meant I might have a little available if I needed to buy a new pair of shoes or something. Taking that away means I cannot do things, so then my mental health is worse, and I’m stuck indoors.
“I can’t turn my heating off because of my health. I need it on or it affects my mobility. If I’m warm, I can do a bit, but not if I’m cold. My anxiety and depression now is getting worse and worse again. I’m stressing all the time, and forever trying to change bill payment dates and things like that.”
That £20 a week was about £80 a month and meant a lot. It meant I was not stressing so much and it meant I might have a little available if I needed to buy a new pair of shoes or something. Taking that away means I cannot do things, so then my mental health is worse, and I’m stuck indoors.
———— Martin
The Government cut Universal Credit last October, pulling away one of the lifelines it had put in place to help people stay afloat during the pandemic.
Four months on, rising bills and inflation are making the storm even worse. The solution should be clear. Government ought to be ensuring benefits rise in line with the costs of living. Instead, people on benefits face a second cut in the space of a few months. Inflation is set to reach 7% by April, but benefits are set to rise by only 3.1%. That means anyone who was just balancing their budget last year, will now face a significant shortfall. Anyone already short faces being swept into poverty.
“It’s not just the £80 a month they’ve taken away in Universal Credit,” says Martin. “Energy prices are going up, food is going up. If they cut benefits again, it’s more like £200 a month.”
£
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a month cut from benefits
It’s a similar situation all over the country.
In Portsmouth, North End Baptist Church runs a Your Local Pantry store. The community initiative brings people together around food, forging new relationships and helping people save on their grocery shopping. That final point is a key attraction right now.
Jo Green, one of the Pantry managers, says: “We are getting busier and busier, unsurprisingly. We’ve just had our busiest ever week, with 110 people, and we are getting a lot of new people signing up. We have close to 600 members now.
“Most people are coming weekly, and they are saying they’re petrified to put the heating on, and are trying to do things like more batch cooking to not use as much gas. Some people come here because they are mindful of food waste, and some because they have less money than before to spend on food. Some people are saying their diet has had to change. If people are working part time, they might have enough for bills but not for food. A couple of people here are retired and say their pension doesn’t cover the food they need.
“What’s the answer? There needs to be an overhaul of benefits. I know families with people on Universal Credit and changing circumstances takes too long to process, and people don’t have enough.”
There needs to be an overhaul of benefits. I know families with people on Universal Credit and changing circumstances takes too long to process, and people don’t have enough.
———— Jo Green, North End Pantry
Ness Brown, manager at the InterAct Pantry in Leeds (pictured on the right above), tells a similar story.
“People are so worried about fuel bills,” she says. “Many have already had one increase, and April’s will be the second. The other issue round here is that one of the budget shops in the community is closing, and the shopping area is becoming a bit gentrified. It’s harder for people to access affordable food. We do what we can, but what I worry about is getting to the point when we might have to turn people away because we’re at capacity.”
What needs to change?
There are many things Government could do to loosen the grip of poverty in the UK, but fundamentally, it must ensure that all households have enough to live on.
In the medium to long term, that means a sensible redesign of our whole social welfare system, based on evidence from people who understand the system first-hand. In the short term, it means ensuring benefits rise in parallel with rising living costs. Anything else is a cut in real terms, just months after last October’s Universal Credit cut. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has calculated that 400,000 people could be swept into poverty if the Government does not alter its plans, and 9 million low-income households will be £500 a year worse off.
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people swept into poverty
Peter Matejic, JRF’s deputy director of evidence and impact, says: “At a time when the case for support could not be clearer, the Government is choosing to further erode the value of benefits that are already wholly inadequate.”
The 7% figure is well-founded. It is the forecast in the Bank of England’s February 2022 Monetary Policy Report.
Social security is already woefully inadequate in the UK, stripped to the bone by years of cuts and freezes. Another cut would devastate households like Martin’s. It would be catastrophic and should be unthinkable. As Martin says:
“Benefits just need to be higher than they are now. People are in terrible situations.”
Be part of a movement that’s reclaiming dignity, agency and power
As Church Action on Poverty Sunday apoproaches, a member of the United Reformed Church's Northern Synod shares his reflections on Church Action on Poverty's vision and strategy.
Later this month, Sunday 27 February to be precise, is Church Action on Poverty Sunday. On that afternoon the new national strategy for Church Action on Poverty will be launched at an event in Waddington St URC in Durham.
Those present at that event are going to be asked to discuss two questions:
- What should churches do to eradicate poverty?
- What will they actually do?
Until recently I knew very little about Church Action on Poverty and so I looked at their website to find out more about their aims, and this is an extract:
“Church Action on Poverty aims to build a movement that can loosen the grip of poverty in the UK. Our projects are hugely diverse and cover a wide area but have one thing in common: they all tackle the root causes of poverty. Tackling unjust Government policies… Amplifying the voices of people who have been marginalised… Challenging harmful business practices… Holding the church to account…”
As I read it, I thought, “tackling unjust Government policies….”, good; “Amplifying the voices of the marginalised…”, about time too; “Challenging harmful business practices…”, quite right; and then I came to the last phrase “Holding the church to account…” That caught my eye. What’s going on here, wait a minute. “Holding the church to account.”
Every Sunday we are invited as individuals to confess our sins and receive forgiveness. We hold ourselves accountable to God. But what about being held to account for what we do as a church, local, synod and national?
How do you feel at the thought of the Church being held accountable here on earth by another group, let alone society as a whole?
We know that the Church is seen by many as irrelevant and disengaged on key issues. If the many are right, that surely is one form of accountability.
Who speaks for the Church? Well, in a very real sense we all do, as individuals and members. Perhaps we need the prod of being held accountable to ensure that we can attempt to answer questions like those being posed by Church Action on Poverty on 27 February.
In this century the Church cannot claim to be unaware of the sufferings in the world, always too numerous to list and often overwhelming. And as a result, do we take refuge in looking after ourselves and our tomorrows when for lots of people the grim reality of today is all there is?
The pandemic has brought untold distress emotionally and financially to many. It has become painfully obvious that some of the support services we thought were resilient have been proven to be threadbare and unavailable to those who need them, when they need them most. There are no quick fixes but what is our response now as Christians, and in this instance as the Church to the significant issues faced by many in our society?
If we take our Christian calling seriously, it is surely not unreasonable to be asked what we are doing about all of this, i.e. to be held accountable.
Take food banks, a relatively recent phenomenon in the UK. Remember the outcry when they were started – and yet why do we now appear to accept them as a necessary part of our social fabric? They do not have to exist, but it will take structural economic reform to sort that one. In the meantime, we quite rightly host food banks, provide a friendly face and a welcome, and in reality, dealing well…… but with only half of the story!
I then got thinking about climate change and the helpful processes available under the A Rocha Eco Church (www.arocha.org.uk) These processes are in effect an audit of a local church’s green credentials.
What if processes like these were available to audit all levels of the church’s activities on tackling poverty, social justice, helping the marginalised and so on? Would they help us to focus our wider mission…?
And if we were seen to be tackling these broader issues, unjust Government policies, amplifying the voices of the marginalised, challenging harmful business practises, etc… would the Church be recognised as more relevant and engaged; and recognised or not, would we then welcome the Church being held accountable…. Just wondering!!
Sandy Ogilvie is a member of the United Reformed Church’s Northern Synod. This article first appeared in the Synod’s e-newsletter and is reproduced by permission.
Be part of a movement that’s reclaiming dignity, agency and power
Click on the right to download the winter 2021–22 issue of SPARK, our newsletter for supporters of Church Action on Poverty.
Staying Connected
Read our annual review and financial statements for the financial year 2020–21.
On 20 November, people from around the UK gathered on Zoom to discuss how we can build a more powerful movement to reclaim dignity, agency and power. Watch the recordings from the day here.
The opening session: our Director Niall Cooper introduces our new strategy for building a movement that can reclaim dignity, agency and power. With opening worship led by Urzula Glienecke.
Participants discuss ways of building a movement in their own contexts.
Participants hear about our work to help churches prioritise people on the margins, and discuss how they could apply the ideas in their own churches.
Participants hear how we support people to set up Self-Reliant Groups – and get a taster of the new cookbook created by SRG members.
Participants discuss how our churches can learn from liberation theology’s approach to Bible studies led by people on the margins of society. Thanks to Revd Chris Howson for facilitating this workshop.
Participants gather again to reflect on what they’ve shared, and to attend our 2021 Annual General Meeting. Includes closing worship led by Urzula Glienecke.
Our local group in Sheffield report on their latest annual Pilgrimage.
More than 20 members of various churches across Sheffield came together to take part in the annual Sheffield Church Action on Poverty Pilgrimage, which raises awareness and understanding of how poverty is affecting people in different parts of Sheffield.
This year, our local group in Sheffield staged a three-mile circular walk, focusing on Darnall.
People attending the Pilgrimage heard about the challenges to mental, physical and financial wellbeing in Darnall posed by the Covid pandemic and lockdown, the various initiatives trying to overcome those problems, and the challenges they had faced.
They also heard from local councillor Zahira Naz about the particular problems facing families from ethnic minorities in Darnall, who had faced unfair accusations of failing to isolate and self-distance during the pandemic.
Councillor Naz said the reality was that many ethnic minority families had several generations living in the same household.
Vulnerable grandparents shared houses with family members working in occupations, including the health services, where they could be exposed to Covid as well as grandchildren who were still going to school.
To make matters worse, many families traditionally had one breadwinner, and for those working in shops, takeaways, restaurants, taxi firms and a number of other occupations, there was often no financial support.
Councillor Naz spoke of efforts she was involved with to source food, and in particular Asian food, for people in financial difficulty, which expanded into providing activity packs to keep children amused and toiletries when they were in short supply.
She said the one good thing to come out of the experience was the community cohesion it created:
“The community came together – churches, mosques, local organisations – and between us we formed relationships. None of us could have done this by ourselves, but between us with that passion to support people in our communities to make sure nobody went hungry brought us all together.”
Pilgrims heard about the work of the Church of Christ, including its role as a ‘Partner Hub’ for Food Works, the Sheffield-based social enterprise that collects surplus food that would otherwise go to landfill.
The not-for-profit organisation distributes the food it collects in boxes and as cooked meals for the vulnerable, the lonely and care workers who haven’t time to cook and started producing frozen food during the lockdowns.
They also heard about the work of the Living Waters Food Bank and the Church of England and Church Army Attercliffe and Darnall Centre of Mission.
Revd Gina Kalsi and her husband Kinder, a captain in the Church Army, arrived to lead the Mission at the start of the first Covid lockdown.
Tackling food poverty and isolation became one of their major activities as they found a number of socially distanced ways to connect with the community.
When a local bakery offered them its unsold fresh bread and cakes, they began delivering it to local people in need.
Gina Kalsi says once social distancing eased the time needed for deliveries went from one hour to a full afternoon as people, desperate for human contact, invited them in for a chat. What started as a chat rapidly turned into ad-hoc support sessions as people started asking them for help, including with completing forms.
Pilgrims visited the Darnall Allotment Project, an initiative established by Darnall Well Being, a not-for-profit, health organisation working to help the people of Darnall, Tinsley and neighbouring areas stay well.
There they learnt that the allotment’s contribution to wellbeing extended beyond providing somewhere where people could improve their physical and mental health by working in the allotment, growing fruit and vegetables.
It is home to an art project which, among other things, helps people with dementia, it organises visits for schools and activities for children who were being home-schooled as a result of the pandemic and also runs courses ranging from hedge laying and composting to making table decorations for Christmas.
The Pilgrims also heard about the work of Impact Living, an organisation that provides supported housing in Darnall for around 25 vulnerable young people who may have mental, physical or financial problems or learning difficulties.
In addition to providing housing, the organisation provides therapy and helps them overcome their problems, where possible, including help with budgeting and ensuring no one goes hungry while repaying their debts.
Impact Living also helps the young people to engage in the community, and recently launched a project with Sheffield United Football Club, which is helping them build their self-esteem and learn about healthy living while learning football skills.
Our local group in Sheffield invite you to join them for this event as part of Challenge Poverty Week:
Saturday 16 October 2021
Gather: 9:00am, Church of Christ in Darnall, Station Road, S9 4JT for a 9:30am start
Visit: Darnall Well Being, High Hazels Park and Allotments, Attercliffe and Darnall Mission, Galeed House, Darnall Family Centre.
End: Around 3:00pm
Length: 3 miles
Hear about local issues and responses to them as we walk and pray together:
- The community work of the Church of Christ in Darnall.
- Darnall Well Being’s drive to eliminate health inequalities and the Allotment Project’s contribution to community cohesion.
- Attercliffe and Darnall Mission’s bid to engage with young people and families to build a Christian community from scratch.
- Assistance provided for young, single, vulnerable, homeless people.
- Galeed House’s drive to help people from different backgrounds and cultures build trust and friendship and learn new skills.
Practicalities
- The 52 and 52a buses connect Darnall with the city centre, Walkley, Broomhill, Attercliffe and Handworth and some go as far as Worral, Loxley, Wisewood and Woodhouse. Closest bus stops to the Church of Christ are on Staniforth Road.
- Some trains from Sheffield Station to Lincoln also stop at Darnall.
- If coming by car, allow extra time for parking. Church of Christ’s car park has insufficient space for pilgrims and the public car park on Station Road is currently closed. Parking on single yellow lines on Station Road is banned and the nearby Prince of Wales Road Car Park has a three-hour limit. You may park on stretches of Darnall Road where parking is permitted on Single Yellow Lines on Saturdays or on side roads.
- Please bring a mask, as some of the venues may require one to be worn, also wear suitable shoes and bring a waterproof, drinking water and a packed lunch.
- Please follow stewards’ advice, particularly at road crossings.
- Walkers take part at their own risk and anyone under 18 must walk with a responsible adult.
- The event is not suitable for dogs as we enter premises.
Come and be open to be challenged and changed by what you see and hear
For more information or to register to attend, contact Briony Broome on briony.broome@hotmail.co.uk or 07801 532 954.
Stef Benstead looks back on her experiences as part of the first Manchester Poverty Truth Commission.
I was invited to join the Manchester Poverty Truth Commission by Niall Cooper, after he had met me a few times at various Christian conferences on poverty and related issues. It sounded like a great idea that addressed one of the challenges I regularly come up against in my work on disability and the social security system – that those with power don’t listen to those affected by their policies, and end up making bad policies due to wrong beliefs or assumptions about what the issues are and what are the causes, and therefore the solutions, of those issues.
It’s really important that people with lived experience of an issue are an equal part of the policy-making process. Many of the problems with Universal Credit are because the government didn’t listen to people in poverty and on benefits; problems with benefits for sick and disabled people would also have been avoided if sick and disabled people had been listened to.
But it’s also hard for people with lived experience to get involved. It’s not just a lack of time, lack of contacts or lack of knowledge about how to get our voices heard. It’s also that the bureaucratic barriers that have built up and the harm that flawed policies have caused have built a painful wall between policy-makers, such as the local council, and the people affected. When policy-makers do want to start listening and put into practice what they are told, it isn’t enough to simply say that they’re listening. First there needs to be a relationship between the two sides, so that those of us in poverty and with lived experience of the impacts of policy can be reassured that this time the listening is genuine and the outcomes will be real and positive.
This is what Poverty Truth Commissions achieve. The time taken to share personal stories revealed a common humanity which I at least wasn’t expecting. I thought there would be a middle class/poorer people divide. In fact what I heard was business and civic leaders who had grown up in poverty, brought up by single parents on council estates; and grass-roots commissioners who, like me, had grown up middle-class only to fall into poverty later. Commissioners on both sides had experienced recent bereavement or relationship breakdown. These stories of our lives levelled the playing field: we realised that where we had ended up wasn’t representative of who we are as people, and that was as true for the business and civic commissioners as for the grass-roots commissioners.
The biggest impact for me was when one of the business and civic leaders took an idea that I had put forward, which from her perspective was unaffordable and unworkable at that point, and came back a month later with a revamped idea that could be made to work. I’m still working on this idea now and hope it will eventually come to fruition.
The PTCs break down barriers between the people who usually make policy and those who usually merely receive it. It does this by creating relationship between the two sides, teaming us up in a common fight against poverty and inhumanity. It can be a transformational process with ripple effects that continue long after the commission itself has formally finished. All it needs is people willing to listen.
Stef Benstead is a trustee of Church Action on Poverty, a grassroots commissioner in Manchester Poverty Truth Commission, and the author of Second Class Citizens: The treatment of disabled people in austerity Britain.
