On Tuesday 10 October, Stephen spoke on the costs poverty has for UK society at a panel sponsored by Islamic Relief. The panel was part of the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool. Tufail Hussain, the director of Islamic Relief, Ali Gourley of FareShare UK, and Phil Gray of the Felix Project also spoke.
There are 14.4 million people - 22% of the UK population - living in relative poverty in the UK. Of these, 4.2 million are children and 8.1 million are working-age adults. Poverty fell during the last Labour Government - especially among pensioners 29% of whom were in poverty in 1997/98 but only 15% of whom were in poverty by 2010 - but has remained persistent at around 22% since 2010.
The panel, sponsored by Islamic Relief, discussed the costs that poverty has for society in everything from individual’s lost potential to increasing crime and reducing community cohesion. They also discussed routes to alleviating poverty, with Stephen particularly urging the Government to uprate benefits in line with inflation.
“We really need to spread this message and a recognition of just how heavy a price all of us are paying for living in a society where there is so much poverty and destitution,” Stephen said. “[We] need to make really big changes to turn that around for the future.”