The UK Labour government under Kier Starmer has committed itself to increasing defence spending up to the end of the current parliamentary period in 2029
Last year, the UK government was spending £53.9 billion on defence which equates to 4.4% of the total government expenditure in the UK.
By 2029, it is set to rise to £73.5 billion, which represents 6.0% of UK government expenditure.
Senior Labour Party figures often describe the Labour Party as the “party of tough choices”. Only last year, Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves stripped winter fuel payments from 10 million pensioners.
In March of this year, the Child Poverty Action Group released some shocking statistics regarding the increase in child poverty in the UK.
- 44% of all children living in poverty are living in a household where someone is disabled
- 72% of poor children live in working families
- 44% of children in families with 3 or more children are in poverty, far higher than families with 1 child (21%) or 2 children (25%)
- Poor families have fallen deeper into poverty. There are 3.1 million children in deep poverty compared to 2.9 million children last year (i.e. with a household income below 50% of after-housing-costs equivalised median income)
- 48% of all children in poverty were in families with a youngest child aged under five
- 49% of children in Asian and British Asian families are in poverty, 49% of children in Black/ African/ Caribbean and Black British families, and 24% of children in white families
- 43% of children in lone parent families were in poverty, higher than the couples rate of 26%
- More children in poverty are growing up in privately rented homes – 1.7 million, a record high, up from 1.1 million in 2010/11
- The three-year average poverty rate has fallen in Scotland from 24% to 23% (one-year from 26% to 22%) and has risen in England from 30% to 31%, in Northern Ireland from 23% to 24%, and in Wales from 29% to 31%
(See https://cpag.org.uk/news/child-poverty-statistics-new-record-high-and-further-breakdowns)
Yet, this Labour government prefers to direct our country’s resources to armaments, to spend money that results in death and destruction rather than direct it to those in our society who most need it. This is all despite Rachel Reeves promise at the Labour Party Conference in 2024 to “invest in Britain’s renewal”.
The Socialist Labour Party utterly rejects this approach.
Our manifesto states:
The full human cost of child poverty is impossible to estimate. Nobody can measure
adequately the cost in physical or emotional suffering of growing up in a damp or overcrowded
home, of having a parent who relies on charity to put food on the table or of going to school in
shabby second-hand clothes.
Every child has a right to live in peace and comfort with decent education, housing, free health
care and caring adults to provide a safe, nurturing and loving environment.
The Socialist Labour is committed to creating a fairer society where the well-being of people is placed before weapons, a place where child poverty would only be a memory.
If you share our vision, join us today!
Allistair Lomax