"Systemic failure to show the reality we live in"

In the following blog, Libby N, a mother to two young children who is not currently in paid employment, shares her response to the Chancellor's Autumn Statement.

On Wednesday, while in my kitchen, with the news on in the background and preparing some lunch, I caught the Autumn Statement. This statement seeks to announce the Government’s mini budget changes before April’s 2024 new financial year budget presentation.

The Chancellor’s opening statement sounded as if he had read the Changing Realities’ report Terrified for this Winter, as the first recommendation in our report states:

“A call for urgent action: Benefits must increase by at least inflation and local housing allowance be unfrozen”.

Although I welcome the increase of the Local Housing Allowance for the families who are living in private rented homes, any benefit increase before the October inflation figures (of which the Chancellor chose the September’s inflation figure), will only allow families in receipt of benefits, to be ticking over. This systemic failure to show the reality we live in, was also revealed by last week’s Big Issue report which explained how households will still be struggling to make ends meet with current prices of ‘food inflation costs up by 10.1%’, as taken from October’s figures.

Furthermore, it is frightening to me that there was no acknowledgment of any further help from the government with energy bills this winter, which is what is needed the most as the cost-of-living crisis worsens, but they chose not to address this problem in the announcement. Looking back to a report from Ofgem from August, it had already predicted that even if starting from October 2023 this year, the energy price cap from the 2022 would have fallen down to £1923, “annual energy bills” would still be “69% above” that of 2021.

The Chancellor’s stance seemed to be on the harsher side, particularly when he declared after 18 months, mandatory work experience for 6 months will have to be taken up in order to gain employment, or one will run the risk of losing their entitlement to benefits altogether. These punitive measures of taking away benefits from jobseekers, sends chills down my spine as although I do not have a visible disability, I experience chronic back pain and underlying health conditions that come with it.

The Chancellor’s comments phrased as a proclamation to ‘get off benefits and move into work’, implies I have not tried, countless amount of times before. It is not as easy as it sounds to find work immediately after having had a break from the job market. The amount of obstacles I have had to face, like the lack of flexible work in every job sector, is a huge barrier, especially if you are trying to work around fixed childcare hours.

Disappointingly, the argument presented by the Chancellor that those who do not conform with job placement schemes will be left unprotected, does not sound like something a government, whose job it is to protect the general welfare of the public, would exclaim. This will only further increase the risk of poverty on the most vulnerable and those living with illness and/or disability, as they are the first to be affected when conditionalities are put in place by new DWP policies.

My final reflection on this would be one of the final recommendations of the aforementioned Changing Realities briefing, which pleads that with any new measure, the government should be ‘ensuring dignity through preventive action’, which ultimately, would be the right way forward and a more realistic start in changes for a Back to Work Plan in the Autumn Budget.