The Canaries: How unfair inequality is poisoning Britain

Unfair inequality harms society like carbon monoxide harms the human body. Inequality damages our economy, our democracy, our social fabric, our public services and our environment. Each of these aspects of society supports the others, and so when one starts to fail, it can have a domino effect - multiple organ failure on a grand scale.

Unfair inequalities across these different areas don’t just reinforce each other; they also undermine the prospects for making progress on policy goals such as reducing NHS waiting lists, boosting growth and breaking down barriers to opportunity. Unfairness creates a vicious cycle because unfair societies are less healthy, productive, efficient, resilient and cohesive.

Britain in 2024 is a society suffering from the carbon monoxide poisoning of unfair inequality - of wealth, income, health and education, and between regions and people of different ethnicities, genders, social classes and disabilities. The canaries in the coal mine are no longer singing. This is a warning sign that, based on our current trajectory, unfair inequality is going to get worse over the next five years, with knock-on impacts on our society, economy and democracy.

Consider some of the statistics. Today, the average person in the South-East of England is ￡195,400 wealthier than their counterpart in the North of England; this gap is projected to increase to ￡229,000 by 2029. Today, 30% of children live in relative poverty; this is projected to increase to 33% by 2028, but the SDG target that the government has signed up to is to halve all forms of poverty by 2030. Today, 1.8 million children live in overcrowded housing; this is projected to increase to 2 million children by 2030.

The Health Foundation forecasts that "on current trends, inequalities in health will persist over the next two decades: people in the 10% most deprived areas can expect to be diagnosed with major illness a decade earlier than people in the 10% least deprived areas".

To address this, the next government has to take bold action to reduce economic inequality and build a fairer society. If we don’t make progress on this agenda over the next parliament, the 2029 election result might see the far-right making gains that we have never seen before in this country.

Reducing unfair inequality will not only unlock progress on these policy priorities, but will pay for itself over time. For example, improving housing quality will save the NHS and the social care sector ￡1.5 billion per year; investing in early years education will generate a 30% return for the Treasury; and every extra pound invested in HMRC enforcement will yield ￡18 in additional tax revenues.

This report sets out what the evidence tells us about how much more unfair Britain could become over the next five years, why this matters, and what we can do about it. It doesn’t cover every issue and it is impossible to predict the future, but the direction of travel is clear. Urgent action is needed by the next government to turn things around.

This is the executive summary of our new report, The Canaries. Read the interactive version online, download the PDF, or read and share our thread on twitter/X. We are running a webinar today to discuss the report’s findings - find out more and sign up. You can also read and sign our open letter to UK party leaders, asking them to make tackling inequality an urgent priority.

The report was covered in the Observer, and the issues were discussed in an article by our chair Julian Richer in the Sunday Times. I was also interviewed yesterday by Ali Miraj on LBC.