Austerity Britain

Austerity Britain

Austerity is a set of economic policies implemented by a government to control public sector debt. Measures: Austerity measures include a reduction in government spending, an increase in tax revenues, or both, to reduce the budget deficit and avoid a debt crisis. This was seen as a solution for Britain as the whole country was in massive debt, upwards of £1,452 billion, therefore, the decision was given a go ahead in hopes it would solve the issue. It did, but not for everyone.

The system basically further helped those at the top, who made the mess themselves, while the bottom 40% of the economy were forced to clean up after them, despite the fact it was not their fault and they were already struggling with, and feeling the effects of, the prior economy crisis. In the end, public institutions and bodies lost out on funding and resources, leading to price rises, and even more struggle for the poor in Britain.

The austerity contributed to poverty in the UK through public expenditure cuts, an increase in regressive taxes that impose a greater burden (relative to resources) on the poor than on the rich, reduced labour protection and pension reforms, and weakening the mechanisms that combat inequality. Which was obviously met with horrendous backlash, not that the government cared all that much. What’s worse, poverty in the UK was already a massive issue, so this system simply led to even more, with those already struggling falling into even further debt.

The work capability assessment (WCA) was extremely important regarding universal credit, it found out what work-related conditions needed to be kept for benefits to be kept in full. The reason this policy was seen as so unfair was because, if you have a ‘limited’ capacity for work in the assessment, your conditions would be limited, this resulted in, many people’s mental health declining and suffering, with plenty feeling they’d unfairly lost out on benefits and re-applying, adding further to the amount of people applying and overflowing the claims, leading to many waiting months for a response.

Austerity also led to plenty of cost cuts, with schools and such suffering as a result, with a public list of over 140 state schools in England whose buildings were in danger of collapse being released (having previously refused to name them.) with all the backlash they were receiving, Tories, or more specifically George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor and architect of austerity, used to accuse his Labour predecessors of “failing to mend the roof while the sun was shining”. But after 13 years of the cost-cutting he initiated, much of the school estate is in danger of total collapse. Former civil servants said the fault lay with politicians who wanted to save money rather than pay for repairs. As policy disasters go, it was up there with the worst. The effects of this, regarding schools specifically, can lead to the school itself almost entirely falling under, as support staff would be the first to go when cost cuts are made, which could lead to kids with disabilities, anger issues and similar needs being forced to leave, leading to £5,000 being lost per student, which obviously, would lead to the school themselves having to cut costs, and eventually shut down thanks to this snowballing effect.

Public services in general have been suffering since 2010, with the crisis of recruitment and retention leading to plenty of them being critically understaffed, and more than likely in debt, just like the rest of the country that are not at the top of the economy, with many news sites and articles, such as the guardian and the BBC claiming that ‘Tory austerity has cost the UK half a trillion pounds of public spending since 2010.'

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/03/tory-austerity-has-cost-uk-half-a-trillion-pounds-of-public-spending-since-2010 (as seen here)

Austerity also led to thousands of people protesting, demanding for Tories to be out of office and for austerity to ‘End Now’ while Grahame Smith, general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, which organised the rally, said austerity was "not sensible economic policy". Although, the government still claimed that it was ‘vital to cut the deficit’ sadly, it appears that austerity is still going to stick around for a while, with The Bank of England warning that the ‘economic slump’, as they put it, will continue well into 2024.