Thomas Baldwin reports on Church action and campaigning to help the poorest in communities amid spiralling cost of living increases.

THE Church of Scotland is calling on the UK Government to take urgent action to bridge the cost of living gap which is plunging people further into poverty.

It has joined 56 faith groups, charities and politicians in response to a new report which says the support being offered to low-income families does not go far enough and a new package is needed.

Author, Professor Donald Hirsch of Loughborough University, said the current flat-rate payments will fall at least £1,600 short of making up for recent changes to living costs and benefits faced by a couple with two children.

Commissioned by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the report assesses the extent to which cost of living measures announced in May will compensate for three blows experienced by millions of low-income families across the UK: cuts in Universal Credit, inadequate uprating of benefits with accelerating inflation in April and the further rise in the energy cap in October.

Professor Hirsch, director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, said: “The shortfall families are facing between skyrocketing costs and the support government has offered continues to grow.

“Families were falling behind with the anticipated rise in costs even when the measures were announced, and since then the food and energy costs forecast for this winter have continued to rise sharply.

“The flat rate emergency payments announced so far leave families with children particularly far behind, because they are not sensitive to the extra costs that children bring.

“A new package needs to address the fact that by the autumn, living costs could have risen by as much as 14% for lowincome families, who have received only a 3% increase in benefits.”

The Rev Karen Hendry, acting convener of the Faith Impact Forum, said: “The Church’s theological tradition is to speak truth to power and is committed to speaking up for the most vulnerable people in society.

“Individuals and families on the lowest incomes are facing the most serious cost of living crisis in decades and churches are on the frontline of offering essential, lifeline support to them.

“The UK Government has a moral duty to take long-lasting and meaningful action to ensure that this crisis doesn’t deepen and doesn’t happen again.”

Separately, the Church of Scotland joined anti-poverty charities, community groups, academics and trade unions in calling for the Scottish Government to do more to help lower-income families this autumn.

In a letter to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, more than 130 groups urged her government to ‘bridge the gap’ under which families with older children are set to receive less support than those with younger children.

The Scottish child payment, which provides an additional sum for Scottish families on top of UK benefits, has not yet been rolled out to the over fives. Instead, bridging payments are made to provide equivalent support for some families with older children. However, while the child payment has been doubled this year in response to the cost of living crisis, the bridging payments have not.

The letter states: “At a time when further massive increases to household bills are looming, this is leaving a significant gap in the cash support available to families across Scotland. We are therefore writing to urge your government to help bridge that gap and, at the very least, double the October and Christmas bridging payments from £130 to £260. This would be one straightforward and effective way of getting more cash support to many of the households struggling most in the face of the cost of living crisis.“

The letter is signed on behalf of the Church of Scotland by Mrs Hendry, along with representatives of the Trussell Trust, Oxfam, Save the Children, Shelter, Cyrenians, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, and food projects and community groups from across Scotland, among others.