The number of UK children in food poverty has nearly doubled in the last year to almost 4 million. 

According to the Food Foundation thinktank, one in five (22%) of households reported skipping meals, going hungry or not eating for a whole day in January, up from 12% at the equivalent point in 2022.

After sustained price rises over the past year, grocery inflation currently stands at 17.1%, the highest level on record. 

An estimated 800,000 children in poverty do not qualify for free school meals. To be eligible households must have an annual income of under £7,400 before benefits and after tax. That threshold has been frozen since 2018, even though prices have risen since then.

Number of UK children in food poverty nearly doubles in a year to 4m | Food poverty | The Guardian

 The number of UK children in food poverty has nearly doubled in the last year to almost 4 million. 

According to the Food Foundation thinktank, one in five (22%) of households reported skipping meals, going hungry or not eating for a whole day in January, up from 12% at the equivalent point in 2022.

After sustained price rises over the past year, grocery inflation currently stands at 17.1%, the highest level on record. 

An estimated 800,000 children in poverty do not qualify for free school meals. To be eligible households must have an annual income of under £7,400 before benefits and after tax. That threshold has been frozen since 2018, even though prices have risen since then.

Number of UK children in food poverty nearly doubles in a year to 4m | Food poverty | The Guardian

 Some Socialist Party meetings/talks/discussions are online via Zoom, and some are in-person. Certain branch and committee meetings are held on Discord. Please contact spgb.discord@worldsocialism.org for instructions on how to join Discord.

To connect to any of our Zoom events, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305 (or type the address into your browser address field) then follow the instructions on screen. You will enter a virtual waiting room – please be patient, you will be admitted to the meeting shortly.

Details of EC and branch business meetings can be found here

WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT ONLINE MEETINGS

Friday 10 March 19.30 GMT

DID YOU SEE THE NEWS? (Zoom)

Discussion on recent subjects in the news

SOCIALIST PARTY IN-PERSON MEETINGS

MANCHESTER

Saturday 18 March, 2pm

SOCIALISM: NOTHING LESS WILL DO

Friends Meeting House, Mount Street, central Manchester.

Capitalism will always be unstable and dangerous to people’s well-being. Its very structure operates against workers’ interests, all the time. Time to stop putting up with it and to replace it with a classless society.

LONDON

Saturday 25 March 12pm

STREET STALL OUTSIDE SOCIALIST PARTY HEAD OFFICE

52 Clapham High St, London SW4 UN

(nearest tube: Clapham North)

Yorkshire Regional Branch

Contact: Fredi Edwards, Tel 07746 230 953 or email fredi.edwards@hotmail.co.uk

The branch meets on the last Saturday of each month at 1 pm in the The Rutland Arms, 86 Brown Street, Sheffield City Centre, S1 2BS (approx 10 minutes’ walk from railway and bus station)

All welcome. Anyone interested in attending should contact the above for confirmation of meeting.

Cardiff Street Stall

Every Saturday 1 – 3pm

Capitol Shopping Centre

Queen Street (Newport Road end)

Weather permitting

Party News

Socialist weekend at Yealand Conyers in Cumbria

After unavoidable interruptions including a pandemic, Lancaster branch is once again organising a socialist residential weekend, from Friday 23 to Sunday 25 June, at the Yealand Quaker Centre in rural Cumbria. This is a sociable get-together for members and non-members in a nice hostel with dorm rooms and self-catering facilities, where we muck in together on the cooking and chores. The last time we did this was in 2019 and it was a pretty enjoyable experience all round (see the report in the August 2019 Socialist Standard – bit.ly/3H9OzkY). The branch will bear the hire cost but is happy to accept pay-what-you-can contributions. You’ll also have to fund your own travel arrangements. Spaces are limited to max 16 so if you’d like to take part please let us know at spgb.lancaster@worldsocialism.org.

 If SUVs were a country, they would rank as the sixth most polluting in the world.

The 330m sport utility vehicles on the roads produced emissions equivalent to the combined national emissions of the UK and Germany last year.

SUVs are larger and heavier than regular cars and use on average 20% more fuel. The increased number of them in 2022 were responsible for a third of the increase in global oil demand.

Purchases of SUVs have soared in recent years, rising from 20% of new cars in 2012 to 46% of all cars last year.

In 2021, the UK’s National Audit Office reported that rising sales of SUVs and an increase in road traffic had cancelled out reductions in CO2 emissions from electric car sales.

Julia Poliscanova, senior director for vehicles and emobility at European campaign group Transport & Environment, said: “Carmakers are culling small cars in pursuit of profit. VW, Stellantis and BMW have all said they are moving towards selling fewer cars and focusing on more premium SUV models. But larger cars put more pressure on the planet.”

Carbon emissions from global SUV fleet outweighs that of most countries | Greenhouse gas emissions | The Guardian

 30 million people across the United States will have their family’s food assistance slashed, despite high prices and expert warnings about a “hunger cliff.”

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits were initially increased at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although Republicans in 18 states had already ended the emergency allotments (EAs), households in the other 32 states along with Washington, D.C., Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have continued to receive them. However, the increased SNAP benefits are set to end Wednesday because of the omnibus spending package from December—federal lawmakers traded the temporary pandemic-era boost for a permanent program to feed children in the summer.

 Tracy Roof, an associate professor of political science at the University of Richmond, recently wrote for The Conversation:

“Many advocates for a stronger safety net say that SNAP benefits are too low to meet the needs of low-income people. They are warning of a looming hunger cliff—meaning a sharp increase in the number of people who don’t get enough nutritious food to eat—in March 2023, when the extra help ends.

At that point, the lowest-income families will lose $95 in benefits a month. But some SNAP participants, such as many elderly and disabled people who live alone and on fixed incomes and who only qualify for the minimum amount of help, will see their benefits plummet from $281 to $23 a month.”

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) experts pointed out earlier this month that “a study estimated that EAs kept 4.2 million people above the poverty line in the last quarter of 2021, reducing poverty by 10%―and child poverty by 14%―in states with EAs at the time. The estimated reduction in poverty rates due to EAs was highest for Black and Latino people.”

CBPP president Sharon Parrott warned Axios Tuesday that the cuts will “allow very high levels of poverty to remain in the country.”

Public Citizen President Robert Weissman declared that “a decent society would not let this happen.”

‘A Decent Society Would Not Let This Happen’: 30 Million Across US Face Food Aid Cuts (commondreams.org)

  There is no single, clear, sustainable alternative to jet fuel that could support the current level of flying. The UK would have to devote half its farmland or more than double its total renewable electricity supply to make enough aviation fuel to meet its ambitions for “jet zero”, or net zero flying, a report published on Tuesday by the Royal Society stated. 

Scientists say that while the government and aviation industry have set a target of 2050 to balance out emissions, huge challenges remain around the availability, costs and impacts of alternative fuels, as well as the need for new types of planes and airport infrastructure around the world to allow the most probable long-term solutions.

Significant further research and investment would be needed, the scientists say, to address questions across four fuel types – green hydrogen (made from water using renewable energy), biofuels (energy crops and waste), ammonia and synthetic fuels or e-fuels.

Producing enough biofuels would require about half of UK agricultural land, while other feedstocks such as municipal waste could only contribute “a very small fraction” of the jet fuel requirements, they report.

Making sufficient green hydrogen or ammonia to power future planes would require well over double today’s entire UK renewable electricity generation capacity. E-fuels or synthetic fuels – which are made by capturing and converting carbon dioxide from the air – would require five to eight times today’s UK capacity.

Dr Guy Gratton, associate professor of aviation and the environment at Cranfield University, said: “The term SAF [sustainable aviation fuel] is quite nebulous…”

Scientists pour cold water on UK aviation’s net zero ambitions | Airline industry | The Guardian

 Almost two-thirds of the world’s ocean lies outside national boundaries. These are the “high seas”. Not only does a healthy ocean provide half of the oxygen we breathe, it represents 95% of the planet’s biosphere, soaks up carbon dioxide and is Earth’s largest carbon sink.

Liz Karan, who leads high seas protection work at the Pew Charitable Trusts explained, “A healthy ocean is critical for having life on the planet – including human life.”

The high seas are more susceptible than coastal seas to exploitation. Currently, all countries can navigate, fish (or overfish) and carry out scientific research on the high seas practically at will. Only 1.2% of it is protected, and the increasing reach of fishing and shipping vessels, the threat of deep-sea mining, and new activities, such as “bioprospecting” of marine species, mean they are being threatened like never before.

The Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, (BBNJ) – are the fifth round of negotiations, which ended last August without agreement. The current round of talks began last week and will end on 3 March.

 The talks are critical to enforcing the 30×30 pledge from the UN biodiversity conference in December: a promise to protect 30% of the ocean (as well as 30% of the land) by 2030. Without a high seas treaty, scientists and environmentalists agree the 30×30 pledge will fail, for the simple reason that no legal mechanism exists for establishing protected marine areas on the high seas – rendering any promises to do so meaningless.

“Heavily subsidised, industrial fishers seek to exploit and profit from ocean resources that, by law, belong to everyone,” said Jess Rattle, a senior global oceans expert for WWF who is leading the NGO’s team at the negotiations.

Greenpeace warned Monday that nations are “once again stalling” as they enter the final week of talks on the United Nations Ocean Treaty, a pact the environmental group says would “safeguard marine life and be the biggest conservation victory for a generation” if negotiators get it right.

Laura Meller, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace Nordic, lamented that “negotiations have been going around in circles, progressing at a snail’s pace, and this is reflected in the new draft treaty text.”

‘One of the most important talks no one has heard of’: why the high seas treaty matters | Oceans | The Guardian

‘Time Is Up’: Greenpeace Warns Global Ocean Treaty Under Threat of Failure (commondreams.org)

https://groups.io/g/spintcom/files/9.%20Miscellaneous%20&%20Archive/Miscellaneous/SPGB%20PODCAST_Ep2%201.mp3

 In war, there are many casualties, many being innocent victims. It is no different from the Ukraine war. Civilians and non-combatants are collateral damage. However, the detrimental effects of the war have spread worldwide. Vulnerable populations are paying the price of this war.

 The World Bank says 94% of low-income countries globally are facing soaring levels of inflation, fueled in part by the impact of the war in Ukraine on food and fuel prices.

According to the International Rescue Committee’s Emergency Watchlist, which highlights the 20 countries most at risk of worsening humanitarian crises in 2023, food prices have increased by almost 40% over the past year.

Today a record 349 million people across 79 countries are estimated to be experiencing acute food insecurity, according to the World Food Programme, as famine looms across parts of East Africa. 

According to the International Energy Agency, some 70 million people worldwide who recently gained access to electricity can no longer afford it, with many returning to coal and firewood to heat their homes.

Even when food is available in markets, people can often not afford to put food on the table for their families.

 The Black Sea Grain Initiative was a much-needed step towards restarting shipments of Ukrainian grain to people in hunger-affected countries.

Just 10% of the grain exported through this initiative has been delivered to just five low-income countries: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. In fact, Spain has received twice as much as these five countries put together.

 Grocery prices in the UK have surged to a new record of 17.1% in the four weeks of February, according to the latest figures released by market researcher Kantar on Tuesday. Milk, eggs and margarine are showing the fastest price growth, data shows.

The report says food inflation in the country is at its highest since the firm started tracking the figures in 2008, adding £811 ($980) to the typical annual shopping bill and forcing UK households to change their consumption habits.

“This February marks a full year since monthly grocery inflation climbed above 4%. This is having a big impact on people’s lives,” the head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, Fraser McKevitt, said.

He noted that surging food prices were the second most important financial issue for the public after energy costs, adding that one in four shoppers in Britain were now struggling financially.

According to a BBC study, some essentials have almost doubled in price over the past two years. For example, a 500g bag of pasta that cost 50p two years ago is now priced at 95p.

UK families face an even tighter squeeze on their finances this year as the government cuts back support on household energy bills, while mortgage rates continue to rise, worsening the cost-of-living crisis. Although overall inflation in the UK fell to 10.1% in January from its highest levels in more than 40 years, food prices continue to rise, forcing shoppers to turn to discounters, the economists said.

RT 28\2\23

Dave C