People on low incomes across the country are being caught up in a rising tide of hardship, with the cost of living crisis combining with an inadequate social security system to pull them deeper into poverty. Today’s Ofgem announcement threatens to turn this rising tide into a flood, as more people are forced into impossible decisions like whether to pay their rent or pay for food.
All levels of government have a moral responsibility to protect households that are reaching breaking point, but the measures announced by Rishi Sunak today fail to live up to that responsibility. Central to the UK Government’s response should be fixing our social security system so that it helps to keep people afloat, such as by increasing benefits by 6% in line with inflation and ending unjust policies like the benefit cap. His measures also failed to address the spectacle of energy companies making multi-billion profits while people across the country struggle to heat their homes. A windfall tax is the just and right response to this most stark injustice.
It is clear, in the inadequacy of his measures, that the Chancellor fails to grasp the severity of the situation facing people across the country.
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