Income Equality and Sustainability

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank my friend the most reverend Primate. We have a shared history as co-protagonists fighting racism in Tower Hamlets. He has been a vociferous advocate for all communities, particularly post 9/11, in addition to his seminal role in the Macpherson and Damilola Taylor inquiries.

The current health emergency is being felt hardest by families on low pay, people with disabilities, and women and children living with abuse; they are experiencing untold financial distress, often relying on community and charitable organisations for their daily sustenance. We are staggering through what is a bleak narrative by any decent standards, given that the geographical areas hardest hit by years of neglect, poverty and social injustice—namely, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Hackney—are also now seeing disproportionate numbers of deaths compared with our cousin boroughs.

The inept political decision by decision-makers who cannot fathom the physical and mental impact of poverty has cast the shadow of universal credit and low pay on an entire generation of people already toiling with decades of structural inequalities, the most defenceless, and inflicted on them an unfair system leading to a fundamentally unequal divide. Yes, we have to balance the budget, but we must also strive for an equal and humane society.

The rainbow on the horizon, as many have said, is the Government’s rapid financial response to this emergency, which has proved that we can fund services in our uppermost priorities. We must ensure that the most vulnerable have their rightful place in contributing to a fairer and kinder society as we rethink the emerging economy post Covid-19.

Finally, I pay my respects to Colonel Tom Moore and Dabirul Islam Choudhury, both 100 years old—one raising millions of pounds; the other, inspired, raising tens of thousands for a better tomorrow. I wish the most reverend Primate and his wife, Margaret, a peaceful retirement, but one not too distant from the House.