Living in Britain in 2010, we take clean water for granted, and turn on the tap to drink or take a shower without thinking twice. But over a billion people worldwide cannot reach or afford clean water; more than double that do not have access to adequate toilets and sanitation. Nearly two million children die every year because they don’t have safe water to drink, and the lives of communities across the global south are blighted by the illness and preventable diseases that result from dirty water.

For years, western governments and organisations like the World Bank have promoted the myth that bringing in private sector managers and leasing out water assets – water privatisation – has been the solution to this global water crisis. They have the investment, the technology and the know-how, it was said, that could extend pipes and taps to everyone around the world – even the very poor.

But the evidence of the impacts of water privatisation across the global south, from Bolivia and Argentina to Tanzania and Ghana, illustrates that this has been nothing but a pipe dream. Read more »

   Filed under: International development, Privatisation | No Comments »

After much anticipation, Lord Young’s review’s of health and safety is out this morning. His recommendations are as predictable (indeed every bit as predictable as we’d predicted), but they still manage to be a grave disappointment all the same.

The report contains not a single proposal that will reduce the high levels of workplace death, injuries and illness. Every year in the UK over 20,000 people die prematurely as a result of their work and at any one time over two million people are suffering ill-health because of their jobs.

Yet instead of looking for ways of preventing people being killed and injured, the report uncritically accepts the myths and preconceptions surrounding health and safety, and focuses on dealing with a compensation culture which the Government accepts does not exist. Read more »

   Filed under: Safety | 1 Comment »

Conservative Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell MP, spoke at the LSE on Tuesday and set out a development agenda that the TUC can work with. He put his emphasis on growth, eschewed any ideological support for privatisation, and announced a consultation on the CDC – DFID’s private equity arm. The speech went a long way to demonstrate that Mitchell’s DFID is more than an overseas aid department, and strongly suggests that he does indeed ‘get’ development – something many in the development community have expressed concerns about. We absolutely must not let reservations about this or that element or emphasis in his approach undermine our fundamental agreement that growth is the only viable route out of poverty. Read more »

   Filed under: International development, Public services | No Comments »

The government is to limit to £50,000 a year the amount on which people can claim tax relief on their pensions.

Inevitably the Daily Mail proclaims:

Middle classes hit again as tax relief is slashed on top-end private pensions

But very few people can afford to put this much into a pension in a year – and even those who get a one-off legacy or divorce settlement will also be able to roll over unused (FT £) allowances from the previous three years. £50,000 a year is more than twice median income. The same approach to geographical accuracy would put Iceland on the equator. This is a hit on the rich, not the middle.* Read more »

   Filed under: Pensions, Tax | 3 Comments »

Four million households in England are unable to keep their homes warm according to government figures, released by DECC today. New estimates on fuel poverty levels in England from Consumer Focus, also released today, reveal how the most vulnerable consumers are being hardest hit by fuel poverty.

• Four in every ten single older people are living in fuel poverty compared to three in ten in 2007- making up just over a third (34%) of all fuel poor households
• One in four lone parent households are in fuel poverty compared to one in six in 2007
• Almost one in five households are living in fuel poverty in England. The North East has the highest proportion – with one in four households in fuel poverty

But even this could be the calm before the storm. Price increases fuelled by infrastructure and climate change policies are likely to dramatically increase fuel poverty amongst vulnerable households in the coming years. Read more »

   Filed under: Energy, Social exclusion | 2 Comments »

On Monday, The Sun ran a story about “Benefit Ghettoes”, about areas where a lot of people live on Jobseeker’s Allowance, Incapacity Benefit and “other benefits, including one parent, disabled and carer handouts.” Running alongside was an opinion piece from employment minister Chris Grayling, who concentrated on two million people “on the sick”:

Some of those people will be genuinely too sick to work. But equally many will have been put there by a government who thought it was easier just to write people off to a lifetime on benefits then, when the economy picked up, fill the jobs with workers from abroad who were only too keen to pick up the slack.

Today’s figures for out of work benefits give us a chance to check how accurate that picture is. They only go back to 1999, but they do give us a handy picture of what has been happening during the recession and before. Read more »

   Filed under: Labour market, Unemployment | 2 Comments »

Yesterday we reported on David Cameron’s failure to commit to retaining Cold Weather Payments at their current rate of £25. But today the Guardian claims that the Prime Minister is ready to intervene to stop them being reduced. Good news if this is true, but a shame that multiple benefits for low income families have not been subject to the same prime ministerial support.

   Filed under: Welfare | No Comments »