The Bishop of Whitby has described the content of yesterday’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, ‘Destitution in the UK 2020’, as “Distressing and Shameful”.
The Rt Revd Paul Ferguson, who oversees the parish churches of Middlesbrough and Cleveland, was responding to yesterday’s BBC Tees news report on The Genesis Project based at St Oswald’s Church in Middlesbrough, which is one of the local organisations responding to deprivation in the area:
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The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s report on destitution in the UK this year shows that it’s getting worse for many people. The north-east is the worst-affected region; Middlesbrough is the borough experiencing the hardest effect nationally, and Hull (also in the Diocese of York) is in third place. This is deeply worrying.
Destitution means choosing between ‘eating and heating’, reduced physical and mental health, and shorter life expectancy. Young people and lone mothers are especially at risk of falling into destitution, and whilst most destitute people aren’t in work, many are in work or are self-employed with unstable hours and pay.
JRF makes some simple recommendations including extending the ‘lifeline’ uplift in Universal and Working Tax Credits, working in partnership with people with lived experience of the social security system to ensure that debt deductions from benefits are not drivers of hardship and destitution, and shortening the 5-week wait for the first UC payment that then leaves people facing unaffordable repayments.
It’s good to see everything that’s being done by the Genesis Project which is linked with the Diocese of York’s Joint Venture with the Church Urban Fund, Together Middlesbrough & Cleveland. With other church-based social engagement agencies, and a range of organisations of different kinds, Genesis is working as hard as possible to address poverty and deprivation, meeting people’s immediate needs. But it is distressing and shameful that this situation exists in 21st-century Britain.
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