The Blueprint for Change is a call for whoever comes out on top at the general election on 4 July to make decisions that would help around one in five people in the UK living in poverty right now. There are 14 million people struggling to meet their most basic needs, including four million children. The last 30 years has seen the biggest increase in child poverty since records began.
Whether it’s Sunak or bookies’ favourite Keir Starmer as PM after the general election – or politicians from traditionally smaller parties such as Liberal Democrats’ Ed Davey, Green co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay or SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn – looking to rid the scourge of poverty from the UK, this is what is needed.
“The time has gone for a light-touch approach from any incoming government. Clear and real change is essential. Failure to act now will be catastrophic,” said Big Issue founder Lord John Bird.
Each of Big Issue’s asks comes under one of the five poverty prevention pillars we believe will help dismantle poverty and change lives through enterprise – housing, health and wellbeing, learning and employment, financial and digital inclusion, and environment and community.
We compiled them based on our decades of knowledge and experience working with people affected by poverty.
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Big Issue is demanding an end to poverty this general election. Will you sign our open letter to party leaders?
Here’s a run down of everything we’re asking political leaders to commit to at the general election and beyond.
1. Housing
In the first 12 months of the next Westminster government’s premiership, we ask for the following policies to be prioritised:
Over the course of the next government’s first full term, we are asking them to:
- Keep local housing allowance permanently unfrozen, to rise in line with inflated local housing markets year on year.
- Implement an ambitious target to end street homelessness by 2030. Greater London Authority has pledged to do this by 2030. So why not extend this across the country?
- Redefine ‘Affordable Housing’. At present, it is 80% of market rate, a metric that is clearly no longer fit for purpose
2. Health and wellbeing
In the first 12 months:
- Provide universal free school meals to ALL school-age children, including outside of term time.
- Accelerate spending and availability of mental health care. Properly invest in mental health care funding, especially for those under 30, decreasing wait times and ensuring equitable access to free services.
Over the government’s full term:
- Increase provision of free sight, hearing and prescriptions for all. There are provisions for elements of these in the devolved nations. England is lagging in help for its citizens.
- Invest in the NHS and social care workforce, with focus on recruitment and retention.
3. Community and environment
In the first 12 months:
- Commit to just transition investment, reskilling workers to be green energy creation ready and to avoid mass industry job losses.
- Commit to keeping libraries open as a national programme and acknowledge the benefits of libraries as key hubs for communities and those frequently most isolated and vulnerable in communities.
- Reinstate Sure Start as previously envisioned. The one-stop shop for families of infants in deprived areas hugely helped health and life opportunities for millions.
Over the government’s full term:
- Devolve greater powers to local authorities to empower locally focused, community-based decision making.
- Invest into local social services and increased promotion and support of foster care and support for care leavers who are frequently left adrift at 16.
4. Learning and employment
In the first 12 months:
- Reform the increasingly punitive benefits system and replace it with a system that helps those most in need while also offering mentorship, confidence building and realistic routes to move people back into sustainable employment.
- Increase job security – reform zero-hour contracts, and provide employment rights from day one in a job.
- Reform the Back to Work Scheme to focus on mentorship and confidence building, rather than unnecessary and harsh punishments.
In the government’s full term:
5. Financial and digital inclusion
In the first 12 months:
- Outlaw high interest credit and make loans and credit sources affordable, equitable and fair
- Focus on gambling-related harm as a public health problem, particularly online gambling.
In the government’s full term:
- Implement a national financial literacy strategy covering financial literacy education and skills from early years to the elderly to improve financial inclusion.
- Deliver high quality, affordable broadband access for everyone across the UK.
- Implement a digital inclusion strategy led by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and the industry for older generation.
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