We cannot return to how things were before

AS we start the conversation about easing the lockdown, we must be clear and determined that we cannot go back to how we were.

Ten years of austerity left public services hollowed out, the gig economy, zero hours contracts and benefit cuts pushed millions into insecurity and poverty and it is now beyond doubt that COVID-19 has killed more than twice as many poor people than well-off people.

Last Saturday’s Guardian had this quote (UK’s corona divide, May 2): ‘this disease knows where to find the weak links.’ And once again, the public sector has been the only institution capable of saving us – the private sector has, once again, insisted that we, the people, through our government to whom we pay our taxes, bail them out and save them from oblivion. No more do we hear them cry about too much government – now they can’t get enough. And we have saved them, again, as we did in 2008.

The comparisons with 1945 have perhaps been overdone but the bit that has to be copied is that we have to have a better world at the end of this. Essential elements of this are:

1. An immediate 25 per cent pay rise for all key workers – NHS staff from cleaners to consultants, home care and residential care workers, police staff, supermarket workers, post office staff and postmen and women, bin men and so many others.

2. An urgent review of the pay and conditions of key workers to ensure their work is properly valued and rewarded to reflect their sacrifice and dedication in these harrowing times, and to make sure we have enough of them when the next shock hits us.

3. An unbreakable commitment to a robust and healthy public sector in terms of funding and standing in society and the economy – we must never again impoverish public services to put money into the pockets of the super-rich.

4. The government must ensure we have stocks of PPE ready for every worker who needs it when the next pandemic arrives. In the grand scheme of things, this is not a major burden on the public purse and these items have a long shelf life.

We cannot require key workers to risk their lives for lack of basic equipment – this has been the biggest scandal of the pandemic. I am certain that the British people will say – are saying – every Thursday, not in our name.

5. An end to zero-hours contracts and the gig economy. Nothing has pushed people into poverty more than this ghastly return to casual working that our grandparents in 1945 hoped had gone for good.

6. Benefit levels must ensure a decent, and much more important, a healthy life for people dependent on them. Not lavish, just decent.

The sixth biggest economy in the world can no longer have millions of children going without adequate food, basic services and proper clothes. It’s just wrong.

None of this is cheap but we can’t put a price on lives.

Ned Higgin, M20