Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jane Parry, Associate Professor of Work and Employment, University of Southampton

The COVID pandemic accelerated remote and hybrid working practices across the world. It also provided evidence that these approaches could work for a wide variety of jobs.

The UK has been at the forefront of the shift to hybrid working and its sustainability as a work practice in future. This year, the Global Survey of Working Arrangements calculated that the typical UK worker averaged 1.8 days of remote working per week, only just behind the more rural Canada (1.9 days).

Along with colleagues, I observed this adaptation in a research project called Work after Lockdown, which followed organisations through lockdowns and examined what they learned around hybrid working. And our subsequent research for the conciliation service Acas looked at post-pandemic working across various industries in the UK.

The employment rights bill, with its proposals to simplify decision-making around flexible working, may also prompt workers to formalise their hybrid working patterns.

At a time when working practices have been transformed for millions of employees, there is real value in drawing together what has been learned over the past five years. This should enable organisations to thrive as hybrid employers.

The House of Lords has now done this – pulling this information together in its special inquiry on homeworking in the UK. The inquiry has recently reported on its ten-month investigation Is Working from Home Working?.

Since September 2024, I have been seconded to parliament to work for three days a week as thematic research lead for business, economics and trade. This is part of an Economic and Social Research Council project to enhance the use of academic evidence in parliament.

During this time, I have supported the home-based working inquiry and observed how a range of select committees and special inquiries work. The committee on home-based working was one of four special inquiries that the Lords stage each year.

A huge volume of academic evidence was submitted, with the report providing a synthesis of the emerging evidence base. Now the inquiry’s findings can help employers make informed decisions about their own hybrid management.

What the inquiry found

First, hybrid working’s impact on productivity appears to be limited. The inquiry concluded that it’s best to assess hybrid work on a case-by-case basis, looking at what is suitable in particular industries, jobs and personal circumstances.

On the other hand, remote and hybrid working shows real benefits in terms of raising employment rates, particularly for those who find it difficult to commit to full-time site-based working. This could include disabled people and parents of young children, for example.

Giving evidence to the inquiry, one employment expert estimated that hybrid working offered a potential labour supply gain of 1-2%, with real potential to enhance UK productivity. This is relevant to the government’s commitment to address economic inactivity, set out in its Get Britain Working white paper.

Another area where hybrid working could benefit employers is in terms of retention and recruitment. In the report, it was estimated that this could save employers between £7 billion and £10 billion every year. But there was an important exception to this. New starters can benefit from more in-person time at their workplace during inductions.

The inquiry also observed that employers’ main concern was losing opportunities for staff collaboration. But this misses an important point. Well-managed hybrid work – which coordinates so-called “anchor days” when teams get together in person – offers exactly these opportunities for workplace relationships to thrive.

And perhaps it can even do so better than full-time office work, when these interactions could be ad hoc and irregular. The inquiry pointed to the “best of both worlds” offer that hybrid working made to organisations. It noted that the potential for technology to support collaboration is under-used. As digital platforms continue to evolve, it seems likely that hybrid working can become increasingly effective.

But given that organisations appear to be concerned about collaboration, they could use this to acknowledge and incentivise employees. For example, appraisals could recognise the collaborative work (such as mentoring) that often goes unnoticed within organisations.

The inquiry also took an interest in headline-grabbing return-to-office mandates. It found that the codification of office days in mandates (along the lines of “staff must be in the office four days a week”) represented a trade-off by employers between collaborative benefits and staff satisfaction. Blanket mandates fail to address the gap between employees’ and employers’ office preferences – and the reasons underpinning these. Unaddressed, this could cause employment relations problems.

On a practical note, after the COVID disruption some organisations have rethought their workplace needs, with the result that they now have insufficient space for genuine collaboration. Colleagues and I are finding in our ongoing research that seat-booking systems can leave workers unable to sit with their teams when they attend the office. This clearly negates the benefits of in-person days.

A more forward-looking approach is to redesign offices in a way that better reflects the needs of collaborative work. This could include creating bespoke meeting places, more differentiated individual working spaces, and the development of hybrid policy alongside inclusive office design.

The inquiry has taken into account the views of a wide range of people, providing an important and accessible review of the evidence at a key time when many organisations are reviewing their hybrid work policy. It offers a wealth of insight as to how employers can adapt and refine their hybrid working practice to achieve both productivity and happy workers.

Jane Parry receives funding from the ESRC.

– ref. What five years of evidence on hybrid working tells us about the future of employment – https://theconversation.com/what-five-years-of-evidence-on-hybrid-working-tells-us-about-the-future-of-employment-270319

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Milena Tsvetkova, Associate Professor of Computational Social Science, London School of Economics and Political Science

In the middle of the ongoing cost of living crisis, exorbitant displays of wealth are back. Since the beginning of his term in January, US president Donald Trump has been literally bringing the gilded age back to the White House.

In April, Katy Perry spent 11 minutes in space for an undisclosed price, reportedly as much as US$28 million (£21.4 million). In June, billionaire Jeff Bezos closed part of Venice, Italy, for his lavish private wedding party.

In news, entertainment media and fashion, luxury is becoming louder. But what are the consequences? Could daily reminders of inequality lead to collective action and social change? A new study my colleagues and I conducted provides a clue.

Social scientists like to measure inequality with the Gini coefficient – a metric that describes how wealth is distributed among a group of individuals (a high coefficient means large inequality). It is well known that people have a poor understanding of the actual distribution of wealth in the society they live in, as well as their own position in that distribution.

The reason is that people tend to associate with others who are in a similar financial position. And that can make the Gini coefficient seem lower – giving the impression of more equally distributed wealth than is actually the case. In particular, the rich are more likely to underestimate inequality than others.

It’s understandable that people don’t think in Gini coefficients. In daily life, we perceive and act on inequality through social comparison.

When we decide how much to invest in sending our children to university, what to buy, where to go on holiday, or whether to ask for that pay raise, we typically compare ourselves to those we know well. And that may include neighbours, colleagues and cousins as well as influencers or celebrities.

Social comparison, more than any national statistics, helps us understand our place in society and moulds our life ambitions, ideological preferences and even political decisions.

Attitudes to wealth distribution

In our new study, we tested whether the composition of our social comparison group dictates our preferences for wealth redistribution.

We used online game experiments to simulate mini-societies where 1,440 people were randomly chosen to be born rich or poor. They each observed the wealth of a small social circle, and voted for a tax rate in a referendum, where the median vote won and the respective tax was collected and redistributed equally among all.

These were idealised, direct democracies with unrealistic 100% tax compliance and government efficiency. Still, they allowed us to create a multiverse of different worlds where voters’ social circles differed by wealth.

In some worlds, the poor were completely segregated from the rich. In other worlds, the poor were more visible to all – think, for instance, of rough sleepers or persistent news reports about families in need. In yet other worlds, the rich were more visible, for instance via celebrity gossip about the lifestyle of the wealthy, glitzy party and ballroom gala revellers spilling out on the streets.

What we found was that wealth segregation is inequality’s best friend. It keeps the status quo by keeping the poor apathetic. In contrast, observing the rich increases support for redistribution and reduces inequality.

It should be mentioned that the rich in our experiment were not at all susceptible to social information; they always wanted the same low tax rate. It was the poor who voted for higher redistribution when they saw more rich people around them. Nearly 20% of them voted for 100% taxation. This means that redistribution preferences start to polarise in the society with stark disagreements between the rich and poor.

More disturbingly, in universes with a higher selected tax rate, the poor were better off by comparison but the least happy: they reported that they were not satisfied with their own final score and that the scores were not fairly distributed overall. In other words, observing the rich may increase support for redistribution and reduce inequality, but it also increases polarisation and discontent, presenting an inherent trade-off.

Recently, there has been a surge in popular films and TV shows portraying the life and tribulations of the ultra-rich: from celebrations (Crazy Rich Asians) to dark satires (Parasite, Triangle of Sadness, Succession, The White Lotus) and even slasher horrors.

We can speculate that this is indicative of a brewing discontent with inequality, an imminent breaking point for a maturing generation that has been burdened with educational debt, robbed of home ownership and deprived of parenthood. Dissatisfaction and polarisation might be necessary for social change in a highly unequal society.

Milena Tsvetkova receives funding from the European Research Council.

– ref. How visible displays of wealth make people support higher taxes – new study – https://theconversation.com/how-visible-displays-of-wealth-make-people-support-higher-taxes-new-study-270629

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Patrick Diamond, Professor of Public Policy, Queen Mary University of London

In walking the political tightrope of her own budget this week, Rachel Reeves had to broadly satisfy three critical audiences. There were her own MPs in the parliamentary Labour party, business and financial markets and, of course, voters who ultimately determine whether the Labour government is re-elected three or four years from now.

Pleasing all three simultaneously is hardly straightforward given the UK’s precarious fiscal predicament. Reeves could have attempted to appease the markets and voters with fiscal discipline that avoided significant tax rises. But if she antagonised her own MPs, her position as chancellor would quickly become untenable.

The chancellor might have produced a package welcomed by voters and Labour parliamentarians, featuring higher spending and tax giveaways. But that risked unleashing a ferocious reaction from financial markets, as former PM Liz Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, found to their cost.

In the end, Reeves delivered a budget viewed favourably by Labour MPs and the markets. The danger for the government is that she did not focus sufficiently on the preferences of the electorate.

Forging any coherent strategy around this budget was challenging, to say the least. The political hype was unprecedented, amplified by leaking and briefing of proposed measures for what seemed like an age. In the background, the impression given was of chaos and instability, with the Treasury no longer in control of events.

Conservative politicians claimed that businesses and consumers were postponing investment and purchasing decisions as a result, further crippling already anaemic economic growth. That the Office for Budget Responsibility published the details of the budget before the chancellor had even got to her feet in the House of Commons hardly increased confidence.

Winning over MPs

There is little doubt that the budget was effective in winning the support of Reeves’s parliamentary colleagues, as well as many trade unions and left-leaning thinktanks.

This was a traditional Labour budget, raising taxes to levels not seen in Britain since the 1970s. By the end of the decade, taxes will have risen to their highest level as a share of national income. The influential Tribune Group of “soft left” MPs not surprisingly gave the budget their warm endorsement.

The array of tax-raising measures delighted the party, notably the levies on dividends and gambling, and of course, the so-called mansion tax on the most expensive homes. The more significant measure was freezing income tax thresholds, a burden borne predominantly by “working people”.

All in all, the size of the British state has increased by 5% of national income over the last decade, a dramatic rise in historical terms.

What made this a distinctive Labour budget is that taxes have increased to raise welfare benefits by £10 billion, notably abolishing the two-child limit. Redistribution is firmly back on the agenda. Another popular measure was a further hike in the national minimum wage, warmly applauded by Labour MPs.

Reeves and Keir Starmer have decided to unashamedly embrace the politics of “tax and spend”, enabling them to draw clear dividing lines with their political opponents.

How will voters respond?

On voters, the picture is much less certain. The chancellor’s calculation is that “median voters” – those on middle to higher incomes who often live in marginal seats that determine the outcome of UK elections – care more about avoiding a further round of public sector austerity than rising personal taxation. This budget will test that political assumption.

At the last election, Labour promised to pay for public services by growing the economy rather than resorting to higher taxes.

But in a fractious environment where the public finances have deteriorated significantly and there is an appetite to impose new levies on wealth, Reeves was compelled to raise taxes to retain the support of her colleagues. Without this, she ran the risk of imperilling her own cabinet position if dissatisfied Labour MPs demanded change at the Treasury.

The obvious danger is that too many voters disagree with her choices. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlighted, the prospects for average living standards in this decade appear “truly dismal”, a less than ideal backdrop for raising taxes, even by stealth.

According to the latest British Social Attitudes Survey, a shift is underway in views of taxation and government spending: “The proportion of people who support reducing tax and public spending has reached its highest level on record (15%), while support for increasing tax and spending is at its lowest point in a decade (40%).”

Although there is strong backing for extra spending on the NHS, increasing welfare benefits are not a priority for many voters. For Labour MPs, however, it is a necessity – eradicating poverty is held to be a core belief that goes back to the party’s origins.

Reeves should be wary of what political scientists call a “thermostatic effect”: attitudes to taxation and public expenditure among voters respond to government action and follow a broadly cyclical pattern. As the state gets larger, support for increasing taxation and spending often declines.

Ministers can try to steer public opinion by making a political argument, convincing voters that removing the two-child limit is necessary to reduce child poverty, extending opportunity for the next generation. Yet, the chancellor will be keenly aware that the government has, in all probability, reached the limit of how far it can increase the size of the state.

Overlooking the concerns of voters is an error few governments can afford to make. Ultimately, Reeves decided it was worth taking the risk of not putting the electorate’s concerns front and centre, no doubt hoping that only 18 months into this parliament, there is time to recover. Yet many of the proposed tax rises do not take effect until 2028-29 – perilously close to when the next election must take place.

Patrick Diamond is a member of the Labour Party and the Fabian Society.

– ref. Why Rachel Reeves chose to disappoint voters with her budget – https://theconversation.com/why-rachel-reeves-chose-to-disappoint-voters-with-her-budget-270898

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rahul Sidhu, PhD Candidate, Neuroscience, University of Sheffield

Semaglutide, the drug behind the blockbuster weight-loss jabs Ozempic and Wegovy, does not slow cognitive decline in people with early-stage Alzheimer’s, according to two large new studies. The results close the door, for now, on hopes that a treatment for diabetes and obesity might also help protect the brain.

The evoke and evoke+ trials tracked nearly 3,800 people aged 55 to 85 with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer’s for two years. Those taking daily semaglutide did no better on tests of memory, thinking skills or day-to-day functioning than those given a placebo.

The drug used was Rybelsus, an oral version of semaglutide normally prescribed for type 2 diabetes. Like Ozempic and Wegovy, it contains the same active ingredient.

Scientists had reason to be hopeful: earlier lab work and studies in people with diabetes suggested semaglutide might offer multiple routes to protecting the brain, from calming inflammation to helping neurons function more efficiently.

Those early hints didn’t hold up in patients. Despite encouraging shifts in some biological markers of the disease, the drug failed to slow overall cognitive decline.

The trials were global, randomised and placebo-controlled – the gold standard for testing drugs in people. The main test they used was the Clinical Dementia Rating Sum of Boxes, a score that reflects both thinking ability and how well someone manages everyday tasks.

Researchers also checked memory, behaviour and levels of Alzheimer’s-related proteins in cerebrospinal fluid. Although some biological markers improved slightly in people taking the drug, their overall decline was no different from that of those on the placebo.

Scientists have been excited about GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide because they appeared to tackle several processes involved in Alzheimer’s.

Animal studies showed they might reduce inflammation, improve how the brain responds to insulin, support the cell’s “power stations” (mitochondria) and limit the build-up of amyloid plaques and tau tangles. Observational studies in people with diabetes even hinted that those on GLP-1 drugs declined more slowly.

GLP-1 is a hormone released after eating that helps regulate blood sugar. Semaglutide mimics it, triggering insulin release, calming hunger signals and slowing digestion. In the brain, semaglutide activates GLP-1 receptors on neurons and support cells, dampening inflammation, protecting cells from damage and helping them manage energy and metabolism.

Lab experiments have also shown it can reduce the build-up of amyloid and tau. These overlapping effects made semaglutide look like a strong candidate for Alzheimer’s – but brain biology often behaves very differently in real patients than in a petri dish or in mice.

Why it might have failed

The negative results may have several explanations. Treatment could have come too late, as drugs that protect brain cells may work best before symptoms appear.

Alzheimer’s is a complicated disease, and targeting inflammation or metabolism on their own may not be enough once amyloid and tau have already built up. Also, shifts in blood markers of disease don’t always lead to real-world improvements that patients or families can notice, especially over only two years.

The drug’s safety looked similar to what’s already been seen when it’s used for diabetes or weight loss. But with no sign of benefit, Novo Nordisk is dropping plans to extend the study for another year. The full results will be shared at Alzheimer’s conferences in 2026, giving researchers a chance to dig into subgroups and additional findings that haven’t been released yet.

The headline results give the main answer but leave a lot of details unclear. Researchers will want to see whether any smaller groups of patients reacted differently, how steady the biological changes were, and whether any of the additional cognitive tests showed small effects.

For now, the message is clear: promising biology does not guarantee a working treatment. Semaglutide does influence processes linked to Alzheimer’s, but these trials suggest it does not slow symptoms once they begin. For families hoping for progress, it’s another reminder of how hard it is to turn experimental promise into real-world gains.

The news had immediate financial fallout. Novo Nordisk’s share price dropped sharply, reflecting just how much expectation had built around a potential breakthrough. The results may also shape how pharmaceutical companies approach future trials of weight-loss and diabetes drugs for brain diseases.

For now, though, semaglutide looks unlikely to become an Alzheimer’s treatment. Researchers will need to explore other strategies to see if the mechanisms observed in cells and mice can ever translate into meaningful cognitive benefits.

Rahul Sidhu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Weight-loss drug doesn’t reduce risk of Alzheimer’s – new studies – https://theconversation.com/weight-loss-drug-doesnt-reduce-risk-of-alzheimers-new-studies-270578

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alex Lo, Professor, Environmental Social Scientist, York St John University

Ahead of the UN’s Cop30 summit, China appeared keen to take on the mantle of new global leader on climate change, stepping into the gap left by the US’s withdrawal from the top spot under Donald Trump.

In trying to understand what China wants from this role, it’s worth examining three areas motivating Beijing to take over leadership, and two others which it is trying to avoid.

First, China is attempting to reshape climate change talks along “tech and trade” lines. At Cop30, it presented itself as a “clean-tech” superpower and as ambitious, technologically capable and cooperative.

Certainly, the country’s capacity for renewable energy generation has more than tripled in ten years, reaching 1,876,646mw in 2024. Solar energy has shown astonishing growth – 20 times higher than in 2015. In 2024, China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, invested US$290 billion (£219 billion) in renewable energy, that’s US$80 billion more than the combined total of the EU, UK and the US.

China needs to address its domestic energy planning for the world to achieve significant reductions in global emissions. Renewable energy is critical, particularly as the rapid scaling of AI and data centres drives a surge in electricity consumption. China is shaping the global agenda in favour of low-carbon technologies and their global expansion.

Growing green exports

A second priority for China in taking on global green leadership is using it to grow its export economy. China gains a trade advantage by making clean energy cheaper. Lower costs allow these clean technologies to access international markets easily. Since 2018, China has shipped out close to US$1 trillion worth of batteries, solar components, electric vehicles (EVs) and wind-power systems globally. But some of these industries are facing overcapacity, and so China must find new markets for its products.

Read more:
Chinese controls on rare earths could create challenges for the west’s plans for green tech

China’s traditional markets, Europe and the US have recently added trade barriers, including tariffs on Chinese EVs and solar panels. At Cop30, China used global climate negotiations to set out its opposition to these barriers, positioning free trade in clean technologies as essential for reaching global climate goals. But they are also ideal for Chinese economic growth.

Shipping to other emerging markets is an alternative to these more established markets. China’s EVs exports to south-east Asia saw an explosive growth in 2025. Its new customers are large, energy-intensive economies, such as Indonesia and India. China wants to keep them and everybody else committed to net-zero emissions in order to maximise its clean-tech trade benefits.

What’s good for China?

China also wants to strengthen cooperation across developing countries. Shared trade interests are only one driver of climate action alignment between competing economies, such as between China and India at the recent summit. Regional security is another.

Read more:
How China cleaned up its air pollution – and what that meant for the climate

China hopes to increase its political power in countries and regions of strategic interest, such as via its economic and trade partnership, the belt and road initiative, and also in the Pacific.

It has already increased its investments in new security allies, such the Solomon Islands and Cook Islands, competing in the region with the US, Australia and New Zealand. To repackage this strategy under the name of climate change, China launched the China-Pacific Island Countries Climate Change Cooperation Center in 2022. Addressing global climate change enables China to legitimise its involvement in these countries and regions.

What China doesn’t want

But assuming full leadership and historical responsibilities for climate change are beyond China’s comfort zone. China’s delegates entered Cop30 meeting rooms being praised for new leadership.

But Beijing is struggling to meet its current pledges. Latest analysis suggests that its carbon emissions are falling slowly. The country’s emission reduction pledges, announced ahead of Cop30, are regarded as insufficient. The biggest threat is its own economy: weak factory output, low consumer spending, high youth unemployment and lower state taxation to encourage growth.

Local governments in China have difficulties in financing the low-carbon economy. Local government debts are accumulating. It’s not clear whether China can fulfil its pledges by cutting emissions sharply, continue to subsidise its green energy industries, and make significant economic investments in regional cooperation, all under its current weak economy.

So China does not want to lead as an advocate of deep emission cuts. Nor does it want to take on the mantle with other industrialised economies of accepting the historical responsibility for global climate change. Analysis has shown that, despite being far behind the US, China’s historical emissions since 1850 have overtaken those from the 27 EU member states. The closer China comes to the US’s traditional role, the more it will be expected to take historical responsibility for climate change. China is not ready for that. It cannot reduce emissions significantly in a short timeframe under a weak economy.

China sees itself as a developing country. At Cop30, one of the contentious issues was getting US$1.3 trillion per year in climate finance from public and private sources in the EU and other OECD economies.

China did not formally commit to supporting the US$1.3 trillion goal, disappointing the rest of the developing world. The lack of commitment was not just a matter of money, but the idea that China should be held responsible in the same terms as developed countries. China has provided a substantial amount of climate and clean energy finance to other developing countries, but this is primarily driven by its strategic and geopolitical considerations.

China also opposed the fossil fuel roadmap aimed at phasing out fossil fuels and declined to contribute to Brazil’s Tropical Forest Forever Facility, a mechanism for compensating countries for preserving tropical forests.

Clearly, China is leading the world in low-carbon technologies. It also believes that climate cooperation with developing nations will deliver trade and security benefits. China will continue to shape climate change talks along these lines.

The next few years are too early for China to want to play as big a role as the US and EU did for the Kyoto protocol and Paris agreement. It will hold on to its red lines and only sign up to plans that meet its own economic and political ends.

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Alex Lo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Three reasons why China wants global green leadership after Cop30 – and two reasons it doesn’t – https://theconversation.com/three-reasons-why-china-wants-global-green-leadership-after-cop30-and-two-reasons-it-doesnt-270329

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucy Leon, Researcher – Centre on Migration, Policy & Society, University of Oxford

The UK government is expected to soon publish its ten-year child poverty strategy, designed to tackle the root causes of poverty for children.

Poverty is an issue for families from all backgrounds. But it is often particularly acute for the children of people born outside the UK. These families may not be permitted to access benefits because of their immigration status.

Instead, they may receive help from local authorities who, research my colleagues and I conducted shows, are operating a parallel welfare system – one that’s patchy and poorly resourced.

Or these families may get no help at all. They may avoid asking for support, fearful that contacting governmental services will jeopardise their families or their ability to stay in the UK.

Current Home Office proposals to extend the time migrants must spend in the UK before becoming eligible for settled status, and to introduce further welfare restrictions, may deepen poverty. This would not only prolong the time children and families have no access to public funds but also increase the number of children and families affected.

The government’s child poverty strategy must address the effect of immigration policy if it is to improve the lives of all children.

No recourse to public funds

The UK’s current “no recourse to public funds” immigration policy was formalised through the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. It restricts access to most income-based welfare benefits for large numbers of people residing in the UK. It applies to most people holding temporary or time-limited visas to enter or remain in the UK.

These could be people on a time-limited work visa, health and care workers and students. It can include people who have come to the UK because they are married to or the family of a British person, and people building lives in the UK who have leave to remain on routes to settlement.

It is also applied by default to people with an irregular immigration status. This covers European nationals without EU settled status, families who have overstayed their visas and those awaiting an immigration decision.

The no recourse to public funds policy is aimed at “temporary migrants”. But many children in households subject to the policy are British-born or have spent most of their childhood in the UK. The policy is one of the biggest contributors to poverty, destitution, and social exclusion among children in resident migrant families.

In 2024, over half a million children – 578,954 – under the age of 18 were recorded as having a visa or leave to remain in the UK, which generally comes with a no recourse to public funds condition.

While not all of them will experience poverty, children in migrant families living in the UK are at a disproportionately high risk of poverty and destitution. No recourse to public funds restrictions mean that families cannot access any benefits regardless of need. These include child benefit, universal credit, housing and disability-related benefits.

The Home Office maintains that there are existing safeguards, comprising of local authority social care teams with a statutory duty to provide a basic safety net to families facing destitution. While these safeguards can offer a lifeline to some, the system was designed for families at risk of destitution, the most severe hardship. It wasn’t intended to alleviate poverty or to be a substitute for the social security system.

The parallel safety net

Local authorities are, essentially, forced to provide a parallel welfare system, at a significant and unfunded cost. Our findings indicate that local authorities spent an estimated £65 million supporting families with no recourse to public funds in 2021-22.

However, at best, local authorities provide below-poverty-level weekly subsistence payments and substandard temporary accommodation for families with no recourse to public funds. However, there is a significant discrepancy in the level of support provided. With no clear statutory minimum rates, vulnerable families face a postcode lottery.

In some areas, a lack of financial policy means families receive only vouchers and foodbank referrals, while others rely on already-stretched social workers to define acceptable amounts. Many families end up turning to charities and food banks for emergency support.

There is no official data on the number of families with no recourse to public funds receiving local authority support across the UK. Through conducting our own survey, the local authorities that did respond reported supporting 3,108 of these destitute families, including 5,831 children between 2021-22.

However, many authorities do not record this data and were therefore unable to provide figures. Our research estimates the true number across all UK local authorities to be closer to 5,400 families, including around 10,500 children.

Even this estimate is unlikely to truly represent the wider need. Many parents do not ask for help. They are afraid that seeking help from statutory services will jeopardise their visa or future applications to remain in the UK. “I didn’t face them as I heard horrible, horrible stories,” one parent told us.

“I was told that if I didn’t have a safe and good home for my kids, they would take my kids,” another said. “People feel scared, so they won’t ask for help.”

The lack of support from the central government goes beyond just the finances. While there are some pockets of good practice within some local authorities, without statutory guidance for social care teams in England, many councils fail to provide the information, accommodation and support that families with children facing destitution are legally entitled to. We spoke to families who described the process of accessing support as humiliating, distressing and intrusive.

To tackle child poverty over the next decade, addressing both the impact of these welfare restrictions and the severe limitations of the parallel safety net system is vital. In the meantime, if local authorities are expected to provide a safety net, they need – at a minimum – dedicated central government funding and clear statutory guidance to fulfil their duties effectively.

Without this support, growing pressure on an inadequate system will continue to mount. The true cost will extend far beyond the overstretched budgets of social care teams.

As part of her research on migrant destitution, Lucy Leon has previously received research funding from the Aberdeen Group Charitable Trust (formerly known as abrdn financial fairness trust) and is currently receiving research funding from Trust for London.

– ref. To truly tackle child poverty, the UK needs to look again at migration policy – https://theconversation.com/to-truly-tackle-child-poverty-the-uk-needs-to-look-again-at-migration-policy-270335