On the strength of hundreds of hours of Grenfell testimony, the BBC’s Kate Lamble distils a tale of “warnings unheeded”, “deregulation drives”, cost-cutting procurement and “a construction industry… race to the bottom”. The final report of the public inquiry into the tower-block inferno that, seven summers ago, claimed 72 lives will this week settle the balance of culpability between these factors and others.
Forensic precision matters—not only to the victims’ families, but also to guard wider society against such horror happening again. But there is, surely, already one more general lesson from a tragedy that started with sub-standard cladding: neglect kills. In the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, the public rightly sensed that the social mix of the residents—working class, often foreign-born, mostly social tenants—was no coincidence. Fairly or not, the mood turned against Theresa May who, as prime minister, was the face of the order that seemed to have forgotten how to care about such souls.
The Labour party knows in its bones that far too much of Britain continues to be neglected. Across the country, people can see poverty seared into their communities: foodbanks in every town; schools struggling with hungry pupils; people, like 70-year-old Tony Sinclair whom I interviewed back in June, camping out on city streets. Conscientious MPs are exposed to the most acute problems raised in their constituency surgeries, and most of those on the government side understand that the “Change” of their manifesto title implied a promise to provide solutions.
If confirmation were needed of how bad things are, a large YouGov survey of Universal Credit claimants this week provided it. Commissioned by the Trussell Trust foodbank network, it established that roughly half of all claimants of the main (so-called) “safety net” benefit had, in fact, run out of food in the last month. Some 69 per cent reported having to borrow money to tide themselves over. And by more than two-to-one, claimants expect their battle to afford the necessities will get worse rather than better in the months ahead.
They might well be right. As autumn approaches, fuel bills are set to begin rising again, after having fallen back for a while. The infamous two-child limit is remorselessly working its way up the age groups, impoverishing ever-more children. A host of less visible freezes and squeezes will, absent action, take increasing amounts from precisely those families who can least afford it. The wider household benefit cap has no reliable link with inflation, nor does the mere £7,400 that working parents are allowed to take home in earnings before their child’s free school lunch is snatched away. A pre-election relinking of housing benefits to actual rents was expressly temporary: rises are soon due to go uncompensated again. In all these cases, government drift will not merely leave poverty unsolved, it will intensify penury.
Against this background, the Resolution Foundation thinktank has just produced some frightening forecasts regarding the outlook for the lowest incomes. As things stand, they are due to decline in each and every year of the current parliament. It follows that poverty is set to rise, especially for children. Some 1.5m youngsters could sink below the breadline, which would be a shameful inversion of what the last Labour government achieved.
Ministers have just made one very welcome announcement, to extend for six months the emergency Household Support Fund, which councils can use to provide relief to desperate people. Abruptly cutting it off would have been a catastrophe. The scheme, however, is an improvised Conservative response to the inadequacy of Britain’s basic social security in the face of the cost-of-living crisis. It exemplifies the “sticking-plaster politics” Keir Starmer has vowed to transcend.
It's very early days, of course: we can’t fairly judge the government’s approach before we’ve seen its first budget. And there’s no doubt, either, that times are harder for the Treasury than they were at the turn of the century, which is why Britain is being warned about the need for making sacrifices today in order to “fix the foundations” and achieve growth tomorrow. But for Britons becoming newly familiar with the gnaw of hunger, and looking ahead with fear at the lash of cold as the nights draw in, any request for additional, immediate sacrifice will not feel like a plan. It will feel more like neglect.
World’s Top Thinker 2025
Every year, Prospect puts together a list of the people whose ideas are shaping our world, and it’s that time of year again. We are looking for your nominations. To suggest your favourite and most paradigm-shifting minds, please fill in this form by 6pm (BST) on 8th September. Answers will be submitted to our editorial team, who will draw up the final shortlist.
