Now is the national moment to guarantee life’s essentials for everyone
As activists take the call for reform to Westminster, Chan Kataria, chief executive of EMH Group and an original member of PlaceShapers, supports the campaign to guarantee that Universal Credit at least covers the basic essentials of life
In her recent Budget speech, chancellor Rachel Reeves said she had listened to the Guarantee Our Essentials campaign led by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust. This calls for the basic level of benefit to be independently assessed and regularly reviewed so that it is enough to pay for food, clothing, household bills and travel.
Since 2021, reliance on food banks has jumped by more than 40%, with 2.3 million people using a food bank in the past 12 months. And with the standard allowance for a single person currently just £91 per week, it is no surprise. The chancellor has begun to address this problem by reducing the amount of debt deductions that can be taken from a household’s Universal Credit, from 25% to 15% of the total.
This adjustment is welcome, and will certainly benefit some of the people most affected by cost of living pressures. But as the sixth-largest economy in the world, Britain needs to be bolder about safeguarding people’s incomes.
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This is why PlaceShapers members are backing the campaign for practical reform to restore dignity and opportunity to millions. It goes to the heart of what we’re all about – to think and work beyond bricks and mortar, and to invest in every aspect of people’s lives – from jobs, skills and education, to health, well-being and digital inclusion. It also shows our commitment to hearing residents’ voices and giving them a greater say in how we provide homes and support.
This summer, EMH was one of the PlaceShapers housing associations taking part in the ‘Laying it all out on table’ initiative. More than 150 EMH residents got involved, with many recording their personal experiences onto a special tablecloth at community events. The cloth travelled more than 300km around the East Midlands, illustrating the region’s diversity with messages in English, Polish, Swahili and Gujarati. The contents from this and dozens of similar tablecloths from across the country form part of this week’s campaign event in Parliament Square.
The message is powerful and persuasive: failing to guarantee the essentials damages people’s health and prospects, and undermines the government’s desire for economic growth. The organisers see it as a ‘national moment’, when we lay out all the facts on the table and invite party leaders to pull up a chair and commit to a fairer deal. It’s a point in history when we can collectively choose what’s decent and deserved for people, over what’s demeaning and damaging.
I’m proud that an active EMH resident, Leanne Peat, and colleague Jackie Sykes are taking the personal sentiments of housing association customers throughout the country to Westminster. As Leanne pointed out, residents don’t often get a chance to tell the country’s leaders about the consequences of political decisions for families. Her presence at Westminster demonstrates that people experiencing hardship are not alone, and that as housing providers we have an obligation to speak out.
One neatly written entry on our tablecloth sums up the reality for too many people. It reads: “The cost of living has taken a toll on [my] mental health, with the stresses of food costs.”
The calm, factual wording belies intense practical and emotional suffering. With this kind of evidence before us, it’s time to decide that things don’t have to be this way, and recall that millions of households didn’t used to rely on food banks to survive.
“Residents don’t often get a chance to tell the country’s leaders about the consequences of political decisions for families”
The government’s Budget move shows how raising awareness can lead to positive change. A recent Trussell Trust petition calling for the essentials guarantee gained more than 150,000 signatures, and indicated that 72% of the public backed such a move. This will, of course, come with a price ticket attached, but the established triple lock on pensions is a clear precedent for protected financial support that saves money in the long term.
When people can afford to eat, heat their homes, buy shoes and school uniforms for their children, have haircuts and travel, they’re more likely to stay healthy, gain skills and get jobs, and much less likely to be in debt, suffer from mental health issues or become homeless.
In aggregate, these individual factors make a massive difference to the demands on health, social care and other services. The essentials guarantee could also be a further step towards wider trials of the sort of universal basic income that already exists in Australia, Canada, Brazil and some other European, Asian and African countries.
The table is set; here’s an attractive menu option for better quality of life.
Chan Kataria, chief executive, EMH Group
