A recent report has exposed child poverty in Birmingham – the impact of over a decade of Tory austerity. In all cases, Labour councils have passed on the cuts, with councillors refusing to stand up and set budgets defending the services people desperately need. Then and today, needs budgets linked to building community campaigns to demand the funding back from central government is vital. Socialist Party members stand as anti-cuts candidates in local elections and organise, with local trade unions and community organisations, people’s budget conferences to place demands on councils for the services we need.
Kevin Greenway, Birmingham Socialist Party, looks at the findings and conclusions of the report, and how we can fight back against child poverty in Birmingham and across the country.
With local and regional journalists facing their own cuts and constraints, over many years, resulting in limitations to investigative journalism, the Birmingham Live report “A Child Poverty Emergency”, released on 20 September, is a very welcome body of work.
The damning report by journalist Jane Haynes “exposes the scandalous impact of social inequality and poverty on our cherished children.” It gives socialists, trade union and community activists a basis in facts to pick up the struggle to end cuts and austerity which blights the lives of the citizens of Birmingham and beyond.
Where there is political will there is a way. Sadly, that will does not exist in the Labour-controlled council, which is now putting all 14 of the city’s youth centres up for sale.
The report starkly details the huge rise in child poverty, up from 27% in 2015 to 46% today. From 68,745 to 104,433 children live in poverty – two-thirds from working families.
Local wages badly lag behind the cost of living, including food and rent, despite the council declaring Birmingham a ‘Living Wage’ city. Where previously Brum had a reputation for its tens of thousands of well-paid manufacturing jobs, their replacement with retail, hospitality and distribution work has led to low pay becoming the norm.
Labour MPs and councillors have been virtually silent on the issue of child poverty. The report puts forward changes it believes could begin to reverse it:
- End the two-child benefit cap – 17,000 Birmingham children are affected by this
- Provide free school meals to every child in poverty – 38.4% of pupils receive free school meals despite over 40% living in poverty
- Protect children and youth services
- Create a permanent, multi-year household support fund and give more discretionary housing grants
- Set up child health and wellbeing hubs in our most deprived areas, impacted by a history of racism and neglect
- Provide free public transport for young people
These actions provide a starting point but would need increased and enduring funding.
The crisis in housing adds to child poverty and poverty for all. There has been an 831% increase in families living in temporary accommodation since 2009. Austerity for the many, while often unscrupulous landlords have grossly enriched themselves.
Infant mortality
The report echoes the seminal 19th century work of Friedrich Engels, ‘The Conditions of the Working Class in England’, when it states that children living in the 10% most deprived parts of England are more than twice as likely to die in infancy. Birmingham has one of the highest rates of infant mortality in England with the highest in Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage families.
Couple the above with the fact that children in those deprived areas are “73% more likely to be dragged in to crime and receive reprimands, warnings and convictions” makes it plain that the deprived and forgotten children of our city are in a vicious cycle.
A heartbreaking paragraph stands out in the report:
“In our two-month probe we found Birmingham children stuck in cramped, cockroach-infested B&Bs for months, hospitalised from the effects of damp and mould on their asthma, going hungry and cold in overcrowded homes and exploited by criminals, with poverty the common thread.”
Ten years ago, Birmingham had the eighth-highest level of child poverty in the UK, now it is third.
Birmingham Live says that Birmingham City Council must answer why it has failed so badly compared to other local authorities on this measure. The report’s author Jane Haynes attended Labour Party conference to press the case for the changes the report argues for with ministers, local MPs and councillors.
At the time of writing, it is not known if anything concrete emerged from those discussions.
However, none of us who have campaigned for decades on the impact of austerity and cuts, and who, have crucially pointed to the crisis in working-class representation, have any faith in those who have been complicit in allowing poverty to reach pandemic proportions.
Labour in power now
Birmingham’s Labour council is under a Section 114 notice, after years of passing on Tory cuts, Birmingham council is being run by government-appointed commissioners. And not one Labour councillor is standing up to fight back against the enforced austerity, not even now there’s a Labour government!
This report is welcome. as is Birmingham Live’s campaign. That campaign, more detailed work and the development of demands which place pressure on councillors, MPs and government to act cannot be left at the level of journalists and community activists alone.
Trade unions have a responsibility to discuss this report in union branches and amongst members in their developing response to those cuts, and consider joining, leading and developing the campaign, as well as widening it to include:
- A massive expansion of real affordable council housing, properly resourced in-house maintenance teams for existing council homes
- A democratically decided cap on rents and enforcement against private landlords
- Free, public, high-quality and flexible childcare accessible to all, from birth
- Extend public childcare provision to include activities for older children and young people. Stop the 50% cuts to Birmingham’s youth services
- Reopen Sure Start centres and council nurseries and expand provision of children’s centres to offer parenting support including for feeding. Bring privatised services such as health visitors back in-house
The Socialist Party says
- No cuts. Kick out the commissioners. Demand the council sets a needs-based budget
- A joint trade union campaign, including industrial action, against job cuts and for fully funded pay rises that address real-terms cuts over a decade
- Demand the money from Starmer’s Labour government to fully fund services – make the super-rich pay
- We need councillors prepared to fight. Build a new mass workers’ party that fights for socialist change
