Advertisement
Opinion

Yes, I was rude, but 30 years of the same inaction on homelessness is exhausting 

John Bird has been here before: we can’t keep having the same discussions with no progress

In an outburst of bad manners I suddenly left the select committee on homelessness and rough sleeping; prematurely, possibly painting me as a brat. I called the meeting a “farce”, hard words for a group of MPs and the chair of the committee to take. But without missing a beat the committee carried on and even thanked me for my contribution.  

I am not so sure if there is a precedent for someone storming out of a select committee evidence-gathering exercise. I was one of four people giving evidence on the increasing emergency of homelessness, and the more pressing presence of rough sleepers on our streets. I made the point that we are always talking about an emergency because we only deal with the emergency as an emergency. 

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

That in fact if we don’t likewise concentrate on ‘turning the tap off’, preventing people from falling into homelessness in the first place, then we will always be handling ‘the emergency’.  

I quoted the Churchill/Attlee coalition government of 1940, that in the midst of fighting Germany – and doing very badly – William Beveridge was dug out of retirement to write the report that led to the creation of the postwar welfare state. So in the thick of an emergency a future ending of the emergency was planned for. A better handling of the conditions of poverty that needed to be addressed. And prevention was foremost in the minds of those formulating later governmental policy.  

Yet the committee to me seemed fixated entirely on the moment, on the crisis, on the poor services that are being offered. In my opinion – having dealt with six governments since we created Big Issue – they were all saying the same thing. Dealing exclusively with the crisis as a crisis was ensuring the crisis would continue.  

Advertisement
Advertisement

That prevention and cure were not getting a look in. That most MPs, peers and governments and government departments charged with dealing with poverty were stuck on dealing with the emergency.  

It was very rude of me to leave before the end of the meeting and I apologised to the committee chair later. It was pure and unadulterated frustration that drove me to get up and go and describe the evidence-giving as a farce. To not see any new thinking around ending the inheritance of poverty – the background for most homelessness and rough sleeping – led me to protest and leave early.  

But when 80% of all poverty money goes on emergency, and little on prevention and cure, then we are always going to see poverty-related homelessness figure on our streets and in our council offices. Always see the breaking of people’s lives, those who are nearly always the lowest paid, who cannot survive the inflation and rent hikes that drive them into eviction and temporary local authority accommodation.  

Because government policy scatters and does not centralise poverty policy and programmes, you get a scattergun effect. There’s no one really in charge of turning the tap off. No one looking into the details of why people go from inherited poverty to lives of poverty and families in poverty. How they follow a well-trodden path that their parents, who inherited poverty, also trod.  

I am convinced that if we could have a central body within government that dealt with poverty, that brought all efforts together, then we could begin to challenge ‘the inheritance of poverty’.  

That we have to do all we can to deal with the emergency of homelessness and rough sleeping, but we have also to start reducing the number of people falling into it. Yet the billion upon billion spent on people in poverty only maintains them in poverty; brings them relief, not exit, or an earlier prevention. And most members of parliament and their governments have only dealt with trying to give the poor a bit more; not with ending their poverty.  

All the energy goes into trying to make the poor a bit more comfortable whilst they remain in poverty. Yet with 11 million economically inactive people in the UK, we are not addressing how to turn the tap off and build a high wage economy.   

How we end the inheritance of poverty, meaning that poverty is the single biggest government spend, will take thoughtfulness and science; it will take clever thinking. As of yet we only see smatterings of it. Unless we accept that we are spending money on the effect and not on finding ways of preventing then we will have a more troubled society.  

Fifty per cent of people who suffer from cardiac-related illnesses, according to the British Medical Association, suffer from food poverty. Food poverty causes the biggest hit on the NHS, on our schools and on many governmental budgets.  

I was rude in leaving the select committee. But when are we going to see the government converge their energies, and the public’s money, towards ending the creation of poverty from one generation to the next?  

When are we going to wake up to the incredible cost of poverty, the incredible waste of human resources?  

Resources have to be shifted to those early days, to those who inherit poverty through the luck of the draw. Unfortunately it is largely those that have inherited stability and comfort who are making the decisions for the luckless. It is those that have won the lottery of birth that decide how we spend our money, on providing another band-aid to put over the sore of poverty, rather than end its domination over so many lives.  

John Bird is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Big Issue. Read more of his words here.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. This Christmas, you can make a lasting change on a vendor’s life. Buy a magazine from your local vendor in the street every week. If you can’t reach them, buy a Vendor Support Kit.

Advertisement

Buy a Big Issue Vendor Support Kit

This Christmas, give a Big Issue vendor the tools to keep themselves warm, dry, fed, earning and progressing.

Recommended for you

Read All
This woman's asylum hotel reminded her of being detained. Here's how we can stop failing refugees
Counter-protesters react to a far-right protest outside an asylum seeker hotel
Emine Yoca

This woman's asylum hotel reminded her of being detained. Here's how we can stop failing refugees

There's no quick fix for single parent poverty but there is a clear first step – Labour must take it
single parent with child
Ruth Talbot

There's no quick fix for single parent poverty but there is a clear first step – Labour must take it

Yes, there have been victories against sewage pollution – but 2025 is a fight to keep Labour honest
Surfers Against Sewage
Dani Jordan

Yes, there have been victories against sewage pollution – but 2025 is a fight to keep Labour honest

The age of surveillance: Are we already living in a Big Brother dystopia?
Two people walking in a public space, their faces blurred with localised squares over their faces, facial recognition systems
Lou Gilmond

The age of surveillance: Are we already living in a Big Brother dystopia?

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue