Income Equality and Sustainability

Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, who has always been courageously committed to the subject of this debate. As he retires as Archbishop, I wish him well for the next stage of his very distinguished public ministry.

The coronavirus has revealed in the starkest terms that the world we have lived in until now is quite unacceptable. For example, it has long been known that life expectancy in the most deprived areas is about 10 years less than it is in the more affluent areas, so it is not surprising—though still deeply shocking—to see twice as many people dying of the virus in those deprived areas than in the wealthier parts of the country. We got too used to the old world, with its grotesque inequalities, too resigned to the notion that this is the way that things always must be. They do not always have to be like that.

At the same time, the virus has revealed that another world really is possible. The population have shown the most remarkable solidarity, the Government in their financial rescue plans have acted boldly in the interests of the whole, and the underpaid hospital workers, care workers and others at the front have rightly been recognised as vital key workers. Let us have a world where they are not only clapped, but also paid enough to live on. The average hourly pay for a care worker in the UK is £8.19 an hour. How many of us could live on that?

We cannot think only of those in our country. We must think of the most vulnerable groups across the world, on whom the global economy depends. For example, there are 64 million migrant workers in the world, and in so many countries, crowded into insanitary dormitories. They have been particularly at risk. People used to talk about cheap labour. Let us talk instead about precious human beings. It sometimes seems as though the world is divided between those who, broadly speaking, are beneficiaries of a capitalist economy, and those who are financial slaves because they have no option except to starve. The world that we have inherited is no longer acceptable. Let us find a new, more humane way to live together.