THE SNP are urging the Chancellor to use the Spring statement to deliver support to tackle the cost-of-living crisis head-on after campaigner Jack Monroe warned that the rising costs of living are going to prove "fatal" for some families in the near future.
Monroe gave evidence to Westminster's Work and Pensions Committee on Wednesday as MPs analysed the cost-of-living crisis.
The food writer, journalist and activist has made headlines in recent months with her campaigning on the lack of transparency on the true impacts of inflation.
As headlines across the media in mid-January announced that inflation had risen to a near-30-year high of 5.4%, Monroe called out these figures as hiding the "real cost".
Woke up this morning to the radio talking about the cost of living rising a further 5%. It infuriates me the index that they use for this calculation, which grossly underestimates the real cost of inflation as it happens to people with the least. Allow me to briefly explain.
— Jack Monroe (@BootstrapCook) January 19, 2022
Monroe told the MPs on Wednesday: "There are millions of children living in poverty in Britain today and their home situations and their families' financial situations are already untenable and have been becoming increasingly untenable over the last decade.
"The impact of the cost-of-living crisis on those households is going to be, in some cases, fatal, and that's not a term that I use lightly."
She went on to say: “The general cost-of-living has gone up to a point where people have less to spend on food in their household expenditure … people are just eating less and skipping meals”.
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Commenting, the SNP’s shadow fair work and employment spokesperson Chris Stephens MP, below, said: “Households across the four nations of the UK are facing devastating consequences as a result of the Tory-made cost-of-living crisis.
“The comments from Jack Monroe today should be printed off and pinned to the Chancellor’s wall as a reminder of the impact his callous cuts have on households.
"That is why the SNP have urged the Chancellor to use the upcoming Spring statement to deliver a comprehensive package of support which will tackle the crisis head-on."
“It must include turning the UK government’s £200 energy loan into a grant, reversing the callous cut to Universal Credit, matching the Scottish Government’s game-changing Scottish Child Payment, and delivering a Real Living Wage.
“If he fails to deliver these measures, the Tories will yet again condemn millions of households to poverty. These problems have been created by an outdated, dysfunctional Tory government – it is on them to fix it.”
During the meeting, Monroe took aim at the policymakers in the room on the rising tide of food banks, informal food pantries, and "numerous organisations" that have "sprung up in order to plug the gap in what used to be a pretty human and decent social and welfare safety net" which is "now being held together by ordinary citizens and volunteers".
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She added: "I don’t know whose responsibility it is to conduct this inquiry but I suspect they're probably in this house."
When asked which groups she was most worried about being hit by the crisis, she said that people who live with disabilities and children were the two most at-risk.
"People who have disabilities are five times more likely at risky of food insecurity," she said. She added food insecurity has been linked to adverse effects later in life, such as chronic illness or mental illness; which, in turn, perpetuates the cycle of poverty, as people are less likely to find secure, stable work whilst living with long-term illness.
Monroe has been in discussion with the Office of National Statistics about changing the way it measures inflation figures. Monroe was asked to elaborate on why the consumer price index (CPI), used to measure inflation, doesn’t adequately reflect the experience of people living in poverty.
She said: "It matters because what the data doesn't show is the real experiences of the people who don’t have the luxury of non-essential discretionary spending.
"What the CPI measures is the basic across the household basket of goods e.g. legs of lamb, bottles of champagne, bedroom furniture. No one was looking at the basic range; baked beans, the 30p spaghetti, so when those things disappear, that means there’s no real recourse for it.
"There's no real record they were ever there in the first place. That then makes it difficult to identify that a £20 a week food shop a few years ago gets probably about two-thirds of what you'd be able to get for that £20 now," she explained.
Monroe said the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is planning on increasing the number of household items it measures to give a clearer picture of inflation's impact on different households.
The writer explained: "The ONS has been very good, we had a meeting shortly after all of that [the viral tweet thread] kicked off. They're now going to measure, in their words, not just the price of one kind of apple in the supermarket, but the price point and purchase of every kind of apple in every kind of supermarket."
She went on to discuss the problems faced by low-income tenants, and those on benefits – an experience Monroe herself is familiar with.
"I’ve done some work with an organisation called Generation Rent – they’re concerned that landlords are trying to raise rents at a time when all the other bills are skyrocketing.
"In theory, tenants can negotiate a rent rise or take it to a property tribunal, but in reality, this almost never happens. I’ve rented 22 properties in my short lifetime, and several of them I was served No-Fault eviction notices – Section 21 notices – for no fault of my own. Some of them just didn’t want a tenant who used benefits."
She described a "two-tier" discrimination system in the private rental market, between what is available to people who receive housing benefits, and the people who receive a little bit more.
"It’s been made illegal for people to discriminate against people on benefits, so what they’ve done is they put the properties which are mouldy, damp, single-glazed, and pretty unfit for human habitation at the rate that housing benefit is set at for that area.
"And if you have a nice flat and you don't want people on benefits living in your flat you simply add a hundred pounds to that. In several properties I was in, I wouldn’t keep a dog in.
"And you know, now I’ve sold a few books and have a moderate income, the whole world is my oyster. And that is wrong. To say to these people that you don’t deserve safe, clean, habitable houses simply because of your circumstances.
"I think landlords need to be held to account for the conditions of their properties, and look at those two different price points and look at what is available to tenants in two completely different situations, because they are completely different."
Monroe was asked if there was anything the Government could be doing to support low-income tenants.
She said: "There used to be a top-up benefit called discretionary housing payment for people whose rent exceeded their housing benefit. It's not advertised, but if you had a sympathetic local councillor who told you about it, you’d write to your local council, and you could get that difference in your rent paid.
"It was discretionary and it was done on a case-by-case basis. But that was taken away about 8 years ago, and that’s very sharply tabled with the rise of foodbank use, the rise of poverty in the UK. That extra top-up made the difference between being able to pay your rent and not being able to pay. When it was taken away, it overnight plunged millions of people into difficulty."
It comes as 22 million customers in the UK will be hit by a huge increase in their energy bills next month – after Ofgem confirmed the energy price cap increase by a record 54%.
The move would add £693 to the average annual energy bill overnight from April, and as Ofgem stated: "Those on default tariffs paying by direct debit will see an increase of £693, from £1277 to £1971 per year. Prepayment customers will see an increase of £708, from £1309 to £2017."
Monroe added: "No-one’s asking for the moon, people just want to pay their rent and be able to feed their kids."
The UK Government has been approached for comment.
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