Priorities and Omissions: Toynbee Hall’s response to the King’s Speech

As Toynbee Hall celebrates its 140th anniversary, we can reflect on the fact that it has witnessed and indeed influenced dozens of King’s and Queen’s Speeches in its fight for social justice. This King’s Speech brings some welcome news to Toynbee Hall and the community it serves. Housing, wages, employment rights, and mental health services are critical concerns for our community and the users of Toynbee Hall’s services and it is encouraging to hear the government address these issues as priorities. However, we must be aware of the omissions which our community will keenly feel—such as addressing an inadequate social security net. For us, what cuts across the range of this government’s proposals is the need for real engagement with the communities affected by these policies to ensure that the voices of those with the most at stake are heard.

Housing
Across our advice and community and research work, we have found that a substantial number of people’s concerns center around housing—whether it be social housing lists, local housing allowance levels, housing conditions, rough sleeping, the precarity of renting, or exorbitant rents. It is encouraging to see that the government has prioritised housing as an issue, both through pledging to address the fundamental problem of housing supply and through re-introducing a renters’ rights bill to end no fault evictions among other protections. Toynbee Hall will continue to work with the Renters’ Reform Coalition to push for legislation that offers true protection, including ensuring that new landlord possession grounds are not open to abuse and that unaffordable rent hikes are addressed.

Social security and addressing poverty
We must also mark what the new government chose not to prioritise. We know, as the Child Poverty Action Group reports, that since 2010, approximately £40 billion has been stripped from social security due to freezes on uprating and due policies which have been proven to drive poverty including the two child limit and the benefit cap. Wage growth and employment are obviously key to household income and we heartily welcome the government’s focus on these, but we cannot forget the other vital piece of the puzzle which is ensuring that an adequate social safety net. There was no mention in the King’s Speech of reversing cuts to benefits, ensuring Universal Credit, Local Housing Allowance and disability benefits are adequate and accessible and scrapping policies which actively drive poverty.

The introduction of free breakfast clubs across all schools as part of the proposed Child Welfare Bill will certainly be welcome to families struggling to feed their children, but it should be paired with policies focused on getting income to families so that they no longer face struggles over such basic needs. Shortly following the speech, the government announced the creation of a cabinet-level Child Poverty Taskforce as a first step towards developing a child poverty strategy. Logically, no child poverty strategy would be effective without scrapping the biggest drivers of child poverty: the two-child limit and the benefit cap. The government should not delay what is a foregone conclusion. Toynbee Hall will continue to press the government on child poverty as part of its work in the End Child Poverty coalition.

Youth Mental Health
Toynbee Hall has been working with young people on a participatory action research project looking at the impact of the cost of living crisis on their ability to access emotional support. The findings of this research has been stark: stress on families because of the cost-of-living crisis has meant that young people feel less able to seek support from their parents as they want to protect them from further stress and strain. At the same time, public services have been reduced and our peer researchers found that young people don’t know where to turn for needed emotional and mental health support. Based on this evidence, Toynbee Hall welcomes the government’s commitment to, ‘focus on prevention and improve mental health provision for young people.’ It is important to note that the peer researchers have also evidenced and are piloting solutions in our local Tower Hamlets community. At Toynbee Hall, we will continue to work with our peer researchers to make sure that policymakers are aware of their vital findings and experiences as they design mental health interventions.

Clean Energy Transition
Toynbee Hall has worked with community researchers to better understand how the transition to net zero will impact people on low incomes and people living in private rented accommodation who have little control over making environmental improvements to their homes. Transitioning to clean energy is important for all of us, and Toynbee Hall will continue to work with its peer researchers to ensure that policy makers understand their evidence on how to make transitions to net zero that do not leave those on the lowest incomes behind.

Devolution
Council budgets have been slashed with great harm to local services. At Toynbee Hall, we have felt this acutely as our service users find that they no longer have other places to turn for a range of support. We welcome the idea that decision-making could become more local with new powers given to metro mayors and combined authorities—but we will urge the government to ensure that they are not passing on greater responsibilities to local authorities without also passing along greater resources.