Author: joe.jezewski

Author: David Gordon, Director of the Bristol Poverty Institute

The DWP published a Green Paper on the 18^th March outlining its proposed changes to the health and disability benefits system and for employment support. The government has launched a consultation to seek views about their proposed changes which will close on 30^th June 2025.

The proposed changes included some positive elements, such as a £7 per week increases to Universal Credit, an additional £172 million for the Disabled Facilities Grant over the next 2 years, an additional £1 billion employment, health and skills support package and scrapping the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) by 2028.

Unfortunately, the Green Paper also proposes that largest cuts to disability benefits in UK history (£5 billion by 2030).

The £5 billion ‘savings’ will be made by increasing the disability severity eligibility thresholds required to claim Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and reducing the amount of additional disability-related support for new Universal Credit claimants by almost half (from £97 to £50 per week), freezing the £97 for existing claimants and possibly removing eligibility entirely for young people aged 18-22. The Resolution Foundation has estimated that about 1 million people may lose their PIP benefit entitlement.  The reduction in the limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCWRA) in Universal Credit will reduce the incomes of many of the most severely disabled adults.

Eligibility for LCWRA includes;

• People who have a life expectancy of less than 12 months, or
• Those waiting for, receiving or recovering from chemotherapy or radiotherapy, or
• Pregnant women where there is a serious risk of damage to their health or the health of the baby if they do not stop work-related activity.
• People whose disability is scored 15 points on any indicator of Activities of Daily Living (ADL).

Examples, of the severe levels of disability required to claim LCWRA include;

• Cannot convey a simple message, such as the presence of a hazard – 15 Points
• Cannot raise either arm as if to put something in the top pocket of a coat or jacket – 15 Points
• At least once a week, has an involuntary episode of lost or altered consciousness that causes significant reduction in awareness or concentration – 15 Points
• Reduced awareness of everyday hazards so that there is a significant risk that they will hurt themselves or others, or damage property or possessions, so that they need supervision most of the time to stay safe – 15 Points

The morality of removing and reducing benefits claimed by severely disabled adults is questionable, particularly given the high and increasing rates of poverty that affect many disabled people and their families.

The most recently available UK poverty statistics, for 2022/23, show that there were 6.2 million people living in low-income poverty (after allowing for housing costs) in families that included a disabled adult or child. Which was 43% of all poor people.

However, the official poverty estimates have been shown to significantly underestimate the poverty of disabled people as they do not make adequate allowances for the known additional costs of disability. The Social Metrics Commission has recalculated the official poverty measure using more realistic estimates for disability costs and found that;

“More than half (8.7 million; 54%) of all people in poverty live in a family that includes a disabled person. Three in ten (31%) of those in poverty are themselves disabled: a total of 4.9 million people.” Measuring Poverty 2024, p9

 

Source: https://socialmetricscommission.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/SMC-2024-Report-Web-Hi-Res.pdf

The poverty data for 2023/24 will be released on the 27^th March 2025 and may show that poverty amongst disabled people has continued to increase.

It should be noted that the Social Metrics Commission is run by the Centre for Social Policy – a Conservative Party think tank.  Academic estimates of poverty amongst disabled people in the UK could be higher than those produced by the Social Metrics Commission.

To conclude, the Green Paper proposals outline a grim future of increasing poverty and destitution for many disabled people, particularly some severely disabled young people.  Low income poverty rates, hunger and food insecurity are already high and increasing amongst disabled people and their families. The proposed £5 billion in benefits cuts will inevitably make this situation worse.

Source: https://www.jrf.org.uk/deep-poverty-and-destitution/from-disability-to-destitution

Author: Professor David Gordon (Director of the Bristol Poverty Institute)

At midnight on Sunday 23^rd February 2025, USAID (the world’s largest provider of international aid – circa $69 billion) was effectively shut down by the US Government on the direct orders of President Trump. Almost all direct hire staff were placed on administrative leave and notice was given that 1,600 permanent staff would be sacked. A six-week purge of USAID’s work, which ended on 10^th March, resulted in 5,200 development programmes being eliminated out of a total of 6,200.

On the 25^th February 2025, Kier Starmer announced that the UKAID budget (circa $19 billion) would be reduced in 2027 from 0.5% to 0.3% of Gross National Income (GNI) to fund an increase in Defence spending. On 28^th February, Anneliese Dodds (International Development Minister) resigned arguing that these cuts would “remove food and healthcare from desperate people – deeply harming the UK’s reputation”.

The likely effects of these cuts are becoming clearer. On 4^th March, Nicholas Enrich, (USAID Acting Assistant Administrator for Global Health) wrote a 20 page memo on the ‘Risks to U.S. National Security and Public Health: Consequences of Pausing Global Health Funding for Lifesaving Humanitarian Assistance.’ He estimated that every year there would be an additional:

• 2-3 million child deaths due to a lack of immunisation against vaccine preventable diseases
• 1 million children per year will not receive treatment for severe Malnutrition
• 8 million pregnant women would not receive maternal health care
• 7 million children will not receive medical treatment for Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (the largest cause of death for children under 5)
• 3 million babies will not receive postnatal care in the two days after birth
• 71,000-166,000 deaths from Malaria and 12.5-17.9 million more cases
• 200,000 paralytic Polio cases
• 127,000 Monkeypox virus cases
• A 28-32% global increase in TB and Multi Drug Resistant TB cases
• Potentially, 28,000 more cases of Emerging Infectious Diseases, such as Ebola, Marburg, etc.

The huge cuts to USAID will inevitably result in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal targets not being met. On 4^th March, the US told the United Nations General Assembly that;

“President Trump also set a clear and overdue course correction on gender and climate ideology, which pervade the SDGs….Put simply, globalist endeavours like Agenda 2030 and the SDGs lost at the ballot box. Therefore, the United States rejects and denounces the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals,‘

We do not yet have robust estimates of the likely effects of the proposed cuts to UKAID. However, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact produced a report on the 26^th February, detailing how UK aid is currently spent. The most concerning findings were that:

• The UK development budget has seen dramatic reductions since 2020
• A substantial share of UK development funding is currently spent within the UK (see Figures 13 & 14 below)
• Allocations to longstanding UK country partners have been significantly reduced
• The UK’s ability to respond to humanitarian crises has been reduced (see Figure 6 below for context)
• Apart from in-donor refugee costs, other government departments now spend less development funding
• The Sustainable Development Goals are significantly off-track
• International climate finance falls significantly short of developing country needs (see Figure 2 below)
• Rising conflict is placing heavy strain on the international humanitarian system
• Global finance is now flowing away from developing countries

Figures from the ICAI report on UK aid spending

Conclusions

The USA and UK are dramatically reducing their funding on international aid and abandoning the poorest and most vulnerable people. It was of course not always this way and so I will leave you with some quotes from previous US Presidents about the need to reduce poverty and increase human rights.

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt  (US President 1933-1945)

“Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt (US President 1933-1945)

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed”
– Dwight Eisenhower (US President 1953 -1961)

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”
— John F. Kennedy (US President 1961-1963)

My own personal view was nicely summarised by Eglantyne Jebb at the launch of Save the Children at the Royal Albert Hall in May 1919 in front of a hostile crowd many of whom considered her to be a traitor for wanting to help German and Austrian children so soon after the end of the World War;

“Surely it is impossible for us, as normal human beings, to watch children starve to death without making an effort to save them.”

Author: Eda Yazici

Illegalised migrants are often associated with poverty and deregulated labour markets. In this blogpost, I share the experience of one family to show how poverty is created and sustained by, among others, agencies that are supposed to safeguard workers and provide a safety net from destitution. This research was undertaken under the Horizon funded PRIME project that analyses the role of institutions in shaping the conditions and politics of irregularised migrants in Europe.

The context

In 2011, the UK government introduced a deregulatory drive to cut red tape and unleash economic growth (Gov.uk, 2011). This was alongside massive cuts to public spending, decimating local authorities’ ability to support those most in need and suppressing enforcement agencies like the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority’s capacity to investigate labour market abuses. At the same time, the commitment of successive governments to backing “UK PLC” and creating a so-called ‘bonfire of red tape’ has made it easier than ever to start a business. This has enabled the widespread phenomenon of ‘phoenixing’ (WoRC, 2024). Phoenixing is when a company dissolves having come under scrutiny but quickly re-establishes itself under a new name to continue its exploitative practices. The slashed red tape that allows phoenixing to proliferate denies workers redress or practical access to justice.

Phoenixing is particularly prevalent among care agencies who offer Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) for Health and Care Worker (HCW) visas. HCW visas were introduced in 2021. They tie workers to employers, and if a worker wishes to leave, they must find a new visa sponsor within 60 days or risk deportation. The government sets the cost of applying for a HCW visa at £551 per person for five years. Of the 15 care workers we interviewed for the PRIME Project, the average paid to sponsors was £5000, rising to a maximum of £15,000. Many of the people we met arrived in the UK only to find that the agency who sponsored their visa did not exist, or offered them only a few hours’ work a week, or had phoenixed after having their sponsor licence revoked.

Hameed and Ferhat[1]

Hameed, a data analyst, entered the UK in 2022 on a Skilled Worker visa with his wife, Ferhat, and their two children. Initially, life in suburban southwest London seemed promising and secure, but in late 2023, Hameed was made redundant. This led to the curtailment of his visa, and despite his best efforts, he was unable to secure another visa sponsor for a new job.

Faced with the loss of their livelihood and legal status, Ferhat, who was a primary school teacher in Pakistan, applied for a HCW visa which would allow her to work as a carer, with Hameed and their two children permitted to stay as her dependents. In early 2024, Ferhat found a care agency who promised immediate employment to sponsor her in an Essex town. The family left London, taking a room in a hotel before finding a house to rent. After paying £600 to her new employer to “release the rota”, Ferhat began working as a carer 16 hours a day for 6 days a week. When she complained about the gruelling schedule, the employer threatened her with deportation.

Ferhat’s health deteriorated under these exploitative conditions, and the family faced further obstacles. They could not register with a GP without proof of address and had to visit A&E for medical attention. Despite a sick note, Ferhat was only allowed two days off by her employer before being forced to return to work. The doctor who saw Ferhat did not raise concerns about labour exploitation. Ferhat’s health continued to deteriorate and after several more weeks of working over 90 hours a week, she collapsed at work. Her employer’s response was to summarily dismiss her. The agency who dismissed her has since phoenixed.

In the three months Ferhat was working as a carer, Hameed managed to secure rented accommodation for the family, began applying for school places for their children, and started to look for data analyst jobs. When Ferhat was dismissed, their landlord issued them with a Section 21 or “no fault eviction” notice. Without a new visa sponsor, the family were unable to find alternative rented accommodation and had to return to a hotel. With every penny of their savings spent, and the 60 days to find a new sponsor elapsed, the Citizens’ Advice Bureau advised them to ask their local authority for help.

The local authority reluctantly agreed to support the family under Section 17 of the Children’s Act which places a statutory duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their area. Section 17 meets children’s basic needs including food, clothing, and housing irrespective of immigration status. The local authority did not agree to house the family until they sold their last remaining asset – their car – for £300 and had spent that on their hotel room. Despite having no legal right to give immigration advice, the family’s social worker advised them to apply for asylum – support for which is funded by central government, not local government. The family was informed there were no secondary school places available in the local authority for their eldest child and despite a statutory duty to admit children of compulsory school age, the social worker and local authority took no action. Instead, Hameed walked the two miles to the nearest secondary school every day to plead for a place for his son. When his son eventually started school, the social worker did not inform them of the local authority’s duty to make a discretionary payment for school uniform or for travel to and from school, forcing Hameed and Ferhat’s son to start school without uniform and walk four miles each day without a proper coat.

At time of writing the family share a room in a hostel provided by the local authority with vouchers to cover food expenses. Hameed has applied for over 200 jobs as a data analyst hoping that one will sponsor him for a new Skilled Worker Visa. Ferhat has been unable to find an alternative sponsor for a Health and Care Worker visa.

The family’s situation shows the devastating confluence of deregulation, austerity, and a hostile visa regime. The bonfire of red tape allowed the unscrupulous agency to rise and rise again. Austerity has made deep cuts to labour market enforcement agencies and the justice system supposed to protect workers and even deeper cuts to local government. This has left them with minimally resourced social care services desperate to cut costs, cut time, and pass the buck to central government. Finally, the hostile environment and No Recourse to Public Funds prevents many from accessing public services, while a tied visa system prevents those who are exploited from speaking out, knowing that they may pay in deportation. While slashed red tape may unleash growth for care agencies, they are part of a wider system that creates, sustains, and entrenches deep poverty. Ferhat and Hameed’s experiences highlight the need for researchers to not view immigration and other areas of social policy such as work and welfare in isolation and emphasise how different areas of policy come together to create, sustain, and entrench poverty.

[1] Names have been changed

References

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/red-tape-challenge

20240627-worc-evidence-submission-low-pay-commission.pdf

Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the BPI and the University of Bristol.