When will the Government drop the phrase “working people” which excludes “retired people”, “children”, “people with long term illnesses or disabilities” and people who have had to give up work to become full time carers and adopt something more inclusive. Until they do, they will continue to shoot themselves in the foot.

Congratulations on the Lib Dem stand against cuts to disability benefit. In my experience most people who are off work due to sickness or disability would give anything within reason to be able to work. However, if Government wrongly believes that a financial incentive is required then the answer must lie in increasing their potential earnings and not the threat of increased poverty.

Widening income inequality and increasing poverty are the great social evils of our time. And unless Government addresses pay differentials within companies, chasing inward investment in search of growth will make the rich richer and create low paid jobs for the masses. It will increase income inequality and poverty: not reduce it. As did stopping the winter fuel allowance and cutting disability benefit which added to the hardship of the most vulnerable people in our society and, given the wealth of empirical evidence into the social determinates of health which have demonstrated the correlation between income and health, added to the winter pressures on the NHS at the very time Government was committed to reducing waiting times. 

In 2022 / 23 there were 4.3m children in the UK being brought up in poverty – 2/3rds of whom had a parent in work. In March 2023 there were 107,317 children in the care of the local authority in the UK – the highest number ever. In December 2023, 112,660 homeless households were living in temporary accommodation in England, including 145,800 children. A record-high for both categories. Despite low detection rates the courts could not keep pace with demand and prisons were bursting at the seams. There was concern about rising knife crime amongst young people.

Two million older retired people were living in poverty in the UK in 2024. The state pension had fallen further behind average earnings (23% in 2025 from 24.5% in 2020). This was because the “triple lock” was suspended in 2022 /23 and the state pension increased by 3.1% instead of 8% had it been applied. Stopping the “winter fuel allowance” in 2024 represented a further cut of 3% in the income associated with the universal state pension having been part of older retired people’s income since 1999. It was restored for some in 2025 not, it would seem, because of the hardship it caused or because of the increased winter pressures on the NHS, but because of the opinion poll ratings and loss of votes in the local elections. Retired people got no benefit from the two pre-election cuts in National Insurance but do have to pay more income tax due to the freezing of the tax-free personal allowance and lost their free TV licence in 2022. Therefore, after ten years of catching-up due to the “triple lock”, introduced by the Coalition Government in 2010 to reverse the year-on-year erosion since the earnings link was replaced by a prices link in the 1980’s, older people were again being left behind.

Shortly after taking office the Prime Minister stated there would be no more money for the NHS without reform. And yet the ten-year plan appears to be just accelerating the direction of travel. When what was needed was radical reform, restructuring and cultural change to liberate the dedicated professionals from the straight jacket of the contract culture into a more enabling leadership one with the creation of “whole task, right sized, multidisciplinary teams” aligned behind outcome, not process, able to “plan do and evaluate” their own work, and take functional divisions out from along patient pathways. Given there were on average 13,600 older people every day in hospital who did not need to be awaiting social care one cannot reform the NHS without considering social care. And social work is grossly undervalued and social workers misused often leading to a minding rather than a mending service. 

One cannot go on throwing more and more money at the first aid camp at the bottom of the cliff without building a fence at the top. Treating the symptoms and not the cause. A whole systems approach is required. 

Having had several articles published in various journals, I thought I would try a book to give the issues a longer shelf life and wider readership. A Fair Society by Chris J Perry has just been published on Amazon and considers the causes of income inequality and poverty and the effect on physical and mental health, the quality of life, motivation in employment, demand upon health and social care, homelessness, anti-social behaviour and crime. And takes a “whole systems approach” to the radical reform, restructuring and cultural change of the NHS and social care. Several of the chapters have previously been published in shortened form in Lib Dem Voice where they were well received. 

Most of the proposed solutions in the book are within the gift of Government. The challenge is to get enough people talking about the issues and possible solutions so that they became familiar, thereby acceptable and begin to gain traction. It will take political will driven by popular demand to bring about change. 

Copies of the book have been sent to senior politicians and civil servants and to many of the MPs who spoke out against the cuts in disability benefit. The more people who write reviews the greater the chance of politicians taking note.

Perhaps the Government should do an income inequality and poverty audit on all it does to ensure that it is reducing income inequality and poverty and not increasing them?

* Chris Perry is a former Director of Social Services for South Glamorgan County Council, a former Director of Age Concern Hampshire, a former Non-Executive Director of the Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust and a former presenter of an award-winning public affairs programme on Express FM.