National Poverty Hearing by PATRICK HANNON

Organised by Church Action on Poverty, the National Poverty Hearing was held in London on 6th December 2006, the culmination of months of hard work. It gave the chance for those who experience poverty in the UK to take advantage of the platform they had been given to make their voices and views heard by top policy makers, church members, poverty campaigners and the general public alike. In attendance were esteemed figures such as Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks and David Lammy MP. But what did this second National Poverty Hearing achieve that the first – held in 1996 – could not? Were people who had recently experienced poverty communicating similar experiences to those who had been in poverty 10 years ago and were politicians and poverty campaigners prepared to listen to their message?

Nearly 500 people crammed into Methodist central Hall in London for the daylong event, including 17 travel weary but enthusiastic JVC volunteers. It was 10 years since the first National Poverty Hearing took place to try to come to terms with huge wealth inequality, unemployment and child poverty at home. So, is Britain so different today? Does poverty still exist? The answer to both those questions is undoubtedly yes. Contrast a Conservative government under John Major, just under 3 million unemployed and 1 in 3 children in households experiencing relative poverty with a Labour government that has brought in a minimum wage and set a timeline to eradicating child poverty by 2012. But if that sounds like a Blarite endorsement for the third way then a few more home truths need to be spoken:

• Consistent and deliberate persecution of asylum seekers through successive laws barring them from work and reducing still further any state or legal support
• Overpayments of benefits and tax credits to low income families which subsequently have to be paid back, plunging those families yet further into the mire
• Rising numbers of low (and medium!) income families who are increasingly facing huge amounts of debt
• And missing the first target towards eradicating child poverty in Britain by 2020

These are just a few of the hurdles Blair faces if he is to look towards the domestic agenda in trying to rescue his 10-year legacy. There is enough there to remind us that representative democracy is not a panacea for the problems of home grown poverty.

And yet, it is not just one man’s responsibility alone. Poverty campaigners from the major charities and pressure groups were reminded in an open mic session of the need to avoid patronising those on low incomes by claiming better budgeting should be part of a drive to promote education as a means to solving poverty. After all, how is it possible to budget for 4 children on £55 a week? Worse still was that 10 years on from the first National Poverty Hearing and very little progress has been made to even acknowledge the existence of urban poverty, let alone how to address it.

If anything, these comments were indicative of a tendency in Britain by political and economic power structures to speak to people rather than listen. It is reassuring that, at a local level at least, that may be about to change. The introduction of participatory budgeting and participatory democracy – albeit on a small scale currently – could herald a new dawn in terms of ordinary citizens deciding for themselves the spending priorities of local councils for the areas where they live.

“We will only have a socially just Britain when…a poor child and rich child born together in a maternity ward each have the same chances of fulfilling their potential. But meritocracy is not social justice: it just changes the people who are over or under privileged. Social justice is when the gap between the rich and the poor is narrow enough to allow children to rise and fall on the social ladder according to their abilities, without causing undue distress to those who slip down.”
Polly Toynbee, Chair at the 2006 National Poverty Hearing

So, was everyone present taking note? Well not everyone was present for a start. We were treated to some quite powerful presentations from Actors for Refugees. Some of the accounts they gave of first escaping one type of oppression abroad only to find themselves facing political oppression in the UK were harrowing and yet no Members of Parliament from the major political parties were around to hear. Conveniently, MPs like David Lammy (Labour), Stephen Timms (Labour) and Oliver Letwin (Conservative) only arrived later in order communicate their respective parties responses to the last 10 years. Nevertheless, the fact that the Conservatives even showed up marks a sea change from the 10 years ago when what mattered most was economic stability. Just like climate change, you don’t know if politicians are taking the issues seriously but they know they have to pay some serious lip service to issues like poverty.

HSBC and KPMG were not going to miss the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon. Each one presented moves in their respective business operations to introduce a “living wage” for all employees significantly above the minimum wage for workers across Britain. Such a move would allow employees to exist above the government’s poverty line without recourse to in-work benefits. But are these big corporations just the exception to the rule? Will the government follow suit by introducing such measures nationwide? It seems that they are tiptoeing along by only promising to raise the minimum wage to £5:52 in October 2007. That is well below the £6:80 (£7:05 in London) demanded by campaign group Church Action on Poverty.

If there was only one part of the National Poverty Hearing that grated with this JVC attendee it was the statement by Britain’s very own cardinal that poverty in Britain could only be alleviated, rather than eradicated altogether. This did not chime very well with Church Action on Poverty national co-ordinator Niall Cooper who challenged policy makers and the public in general to set about eradicating poverty at home by 2020. Is that a realistic target or just high-minded idealism that seeks to raise morale and spur on poverty campaigners in order to make more progress? With the launch of a Make Poverty History At Home campaign set to launch in 2008 it would seem that poverty campaigners, having begun to set the agenda abroad, are in no mood to miss this opportunity at home. With a probable general election in 2009 – and concentrated efforts being made to put poverty issues at the forefront of people’s minds – who would bet against them nearing the completion of their task by the time of the next National Poverty Hearing?
Patrick was a JVC volunteer 2006-7. He volunteered at Church Action on Poverty and the Booth Centre.