Founder of the Big Issue warns “poverty is destroying” Britain as he celebrates 80th birthday

Friday 30 January – The founder of the Big Issue warned fellow peers in the House of Lords that “poverty is destroying us” as he celebrated his 80^th birthday this week.

John Bird, who turns 80 today (30 January 2026), imparted the warning in the chamber as the government knocked back his attempt to tighten legislative scrutiny on child poverty via the Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill.

Lord Bird was born into extreme poverty, growing up in the slums of Notting Hill, London in the 1940s and 50s. He went on to found the Big Issue magazine 35 years ago in 1991, and was made a crossbench peer in 2015.

Speaking in the House of Lords this week, Bird said: “Poverty is destroying us. Poverty is stopping schools delivering on schooling.

“Every government I know has had all sorts of initiatives to get rid of poverty but we never see the end of poverty.

“Four and a half million children are caught in poverty, and that is a tremendous indictment – not of this government, not of the last government, not even of the government before that – it’s the indictment of the methodology. It’s an inherited methodology.

“Every generation of government passes down and takes the same form as other governments. Let’s look at targets. Let’s be honest about targets.”

Lord Bird’s amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill would have placed a duty on present and future governments to set themselves legal targets for reducing child poverty. Minister for Education Jacqui Smith laid out the government’s opposition to having child poverty targets, arguing that they are “not an effective way of binding governments to a specific course of action”.

Back in early December, the government published its Child Poverty Strategy, setting out plans to address child poverty and inequality over the next decade. The strategy included a commitment to scrap the two-child benefit cap, a move the government has said will lift over half a million children out of poverty.

At the time of its publication, Lord Bird voiced concerns about how progress will be measured and how future governments will be held to account over the lifetime of the strategy. His amendment sought to address these concerns, but now it will not move forward now due to the government’s opposition.