By Katharine Pindar
The new annual report of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, UK Poverty 2026, makes disturbing reading. Poverty was suffered by 21% of the population in 2023-4, more than 14 million people: the rate of 20-22% had been steady throughout the previous decade. The average person in poverty had an income 29% below the poverty line of 60% of average income. But in its latest measurement, in 2023-4, the JRF found that 6.8 million people, almost half of those living in poverty, were in very deep poverty, with an average income an appalling 59% below the poverty line. This is the highest proportion of the population suffering very deep poverty on record, says JRF. They report that, around 3.8 million people experienced actual destitution in 2022, including around a million children. These figures have more than doubled since 2017.
‘The basic state of benefits continues to be around the threshold for destitution’ states the report.
How has this chronic state of so many of our citizens come to this, and what is the Government doing about it? JRF explain that before the pandemic benefits were being cut, deepening poverty. Then a decade of weak growth in real incomes was succeeded by the pandemic and next the cost of living crisis, driving up the numbers of people lacking essentials and having to rely on emergency charity such as Food Banks (surely no longer considered so much as an emergency as a sadly necessary extra provision today).
The Government’s Child Poverty Strategy is indeed likely to reduce child poverty by 400,000 over the current Parliament. Scrapping the Two Child Limit for benefits, a long-held Liberal Democrat policy, is at the centre of the strategy. Child poverty is indeed a chronic need, but the DWP forecasts that over 4 million children will still be in poverty in 2029-30.
Which are the families most likely to be in very deep poverty? While being in work vastly reduces the likelihood of being in poverty, in-work poverty has been rising. And the JRF states that ‘Economic growth on its own will not reduce poverty.’ Indeed, they point out that growing living standards and falling poverty could be spurs to growth.
Those most likely to be in poverty, they report, include large families with children, minority ethnic groups, Muslim households, disabled people, informal carers, people in workless households and social and private renters. Greater reliance on renting and higher costs of housing are drivers of poverty in the larger cities.
So, tackling the picture of deepening poverty which the JRF report shows cannot be easy. Yet our 2024 Manifesto suggested in brief the policy worked out among others including abolishing the two-child cap by our Fairer Society Working Group and passed by the 2023 Autumn Conference. This policy is designed to try to lessen deep poverty in Britain as well as poverty overall. The manifesto says, on page 51,
We will set a target of ending deep poverty within a decade, and establish an independent commission to recommend further annual increases in Universal Credit to ensure that support covers life’s essentials, such as food and bills.
As this Government emerges from the doldrums and reveals its caring heart, this surely is the time when our spokespeople and Leader should be recommending our policy of ending deep poverty – which, if they have two terms, the Government could indeed plan for. Some 6.8 million people desperately need help.
Katharine Pindar is a member of the 2024 - 2026 Social Liberal Forum Council and long-standing member of the Cumberland Lib Dems. This article is a re-publication of a Lib Dem Voice article authored by Katharine.