At the meeting of Sutton Council on 17 January, chaired by Trish as our Mayor, Richard moved a motion drawing attention to the number of residents of the Ward living in poverty, the support they got from Sutton Council, and the need for Government to properly fund Councils, while increasing spending on welfare to help the poorest. This is the text of his speech:
“This motion is about poverty and the impact the pandemic has had in exacerbating the gap between the wealthy and the poor in what was already a very unequal society.
In current political debate the phrase “Levelling Up” is sometimes used, but in a vague and unspecific manner. I have always seen “levelling up” as a key political aim, but what I mean by this is the need to level up to help those in poverty. It is a preoccupation that is one of the reasons I have always wanted to play a part in public service and political life. I am a Councillor for Sutton South Ward, one of the more affluent Wards in a borough that is more affluent than most of the 32 London boroughs. But in knocking on the doors of my residents I sometimes find people living in shocking poverty, families crowded into small flats, well down the queue for social housing despite their crowded living circumstances, using food banks, often struggling to put food on the table, sometimes out of work due to long term illness but often in these circumstances despite working long hours in low paid jobs. The statistics are frightening – in a borough with a population of about 200 000 over 18 000 of our residents are in such poverty that they are relying on Universal Credit to feed themselves and make ends meet, while over 800 of our families are homeless and living temporarily in nightly-paid accommodation, often far from Sutton with all the problems of getting their children to school here.
Who is helping these families? Not the Government, and the low point was reached on the sixth of October of last year when, on the very day that the Government cut £20 a week from the welfare support to the poorest in society, making us one of the European countries that gives least help to the poorest in society from welfare, Boris Johnson made his famous closing speech to the Tory party conference which even one Conservative newspaper described as being like an after dinner speech full of jokey one-liners rather than a serious speech, talking in serious terms, about serious problems, given by a serious politician. We are still waiting for such a speech. I doubt if we will ever get it. And I think that even the Tories now doubt we ever get it. And in recent months it has become evident that the public at large have clearly recognised we will never get it.
The Resolution Foundation estimated that despite the minimum wage rise and other Government tinkering, the lowest paid fifth of households will lose £280 in support this financial year – and that was before the rise in National Insurance contributions was announced, and before the coming tidal wave of inflationary pressures became clear. This is a massive sum for those whose budgets are so stretched. Not a lot of “Levelling Up” here.
By contrast, what does local Government do? Despite the £36 million annual cut from our budget by central Government since 2010 Sutton Council continues to give priority to services that help the poorest, in accordance with our Liberal Democrat principles. We are one of a minority of Councils keeping Meals on Wheels going. We fund Admiral nurses to help families struggling with illness and dementia. We maintain a system of crisis loans and grants for those in greatest need, though central Government support for this was cut back years ago. We support families whose children are eligible for Free School Meals due to the financial position of the family, children who might otherwise go hungry over holiday periods. We can hold our heads high.
We have stuck to our principles and to these policies while maintaining our concern for financial responsibility – and despite the savings and cuts to services we have had to make over the years to balance the books as Government support has been cut. The pandemic has added a further layer of financial difficulty with demands for community support that the Council has responded to magnificently, but that have been expensive.
What this motion says is:
The pandemic has left many families struggling to survive financially
The actions of Government have not helped them
We are the key driver locally to spearhead the recovery of the community and help those in most need
We need to be funded properly and the welfare support to those of our residents who are the poorest in society needs to be restored.”