Panorama.S2014E33.Scotland.The.Peoples.Voice

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Panorama.S2014E33.Scotland.The.Peoples.Voice
Transcript
00:00of an interpreter killed. That's in a half an hour on BBC1.
00:04After Panorama.
00:11Millions of British workers aren't earning enough
00:14to support their families.
00:17We've got nothing left at the end of the week.
00:20We're getting by, but just barely.
00:25The government is spending £28 billion a year
00:29topping up low wages,
00:31and that means big handouts for some families.
00:35How much do you get a year?
00:37Just over £7,000.
00:39£7,000. That's an awful lot of money, isn't it?
00:42Yeah.
00:43Even with government help,
00:45some workers still can't afford the basics.
00:49Are you ready for this?
00:54That's not there.
00:56We've spent the summer with workers who are living on the edge.
01:01I fell out of love with him because of it.
01:08It is very hard.
01:10So can anyone solve this £28 billion problem?
01:16From a short- to medium-term perspective,
01:20things do look quite grim.
01:25MUSIC SWELLS
01:45A financial crisis is sweeping through homes across Britain.
01:51It's a serious problem.
01:53Millions of people who can't afford to support themselves
01:57and their families.
02:01I'm going to travel across Britain to meet families
02:04who are all struggling with the basics, like food and bills.
02:08People who wouldn't survive without state handouts.
02:12And what's surprising about all the people I'm going to meet
02:16is they're all working.
02:19They're the sort of people
02:21our politicians are quick to say they want to help.
02:26This party is on the side of hard-working people.
02:31Together we can build a better future
02:34for the working people of Britain.
02:36To all the other hard-working families
02:39just trying to stay afloat,
02:43I say this.
02:45The Liberal Democrats are on your side.
02:52But despite all the promises, wages aren't keeping up with prices.
02:57And that means more than three million families across the country
03:02don't earn enough to make ends meet.
03:06This is rural Wiltshire, home to the O'Haro family.
03:12John and Zoe both work
03:15and between them earn about £20,500 a year.
03:21But they only survive because of a government handout
03:25called tax credit.
03:27The tax credit is a form of tax credit
03:31They get about £9,000 a year.
03:35Could you live without it?
03:37No. I couldn't live without it.
03:40So it's the difference between getting by and not getting by.
03:43Yeah.
03:51The family's main earner is John.
03:56He works full-time as a chef in this farm shop
04:00and earns above the minimum wage.
04:03But the shop's not yet profitable
04:06and the owner simply can't afford to pay him more.
04:17At the end of his shift, he cycles the five miles back from home
04:22to save the bus fare.
04:28That's a big fruit salad.
04:31At home in Milkshame, Zoe is looking after their children,
04:36Amelia, Ruby and Caitlin.
04:45Hello, Zoe. Hello, this is Rinky.
04:47How are you doing?
04:50She works at a hotel but doesn't have any guaranteed hours.
04:56You should be able to earn enough to live on, really.
05:00The prices of everything have gone up, hasn't it?
05:03And the wages don't go up as high as the other stuff.
05:08And where are we? Do you have enough to get by?
05:11We've got enough to eat.
05:13But it's as basic as that? Yeah.
05:19Wiggly worms!
05:21We're both doing what we're supposed to be doing.
05:25We're looking after our children, we're working,
05:28so we should be getting enough money,
05:32but it just doesn't work out like that.
05:39The financial pressures can be hard to live with.
05:45Do you row over money? Yeah, all the time.
05:49We get angry with each other more, don't we?
05:52I do, I get angry with John.
05:55How bad has it been between you because of money?
05:58I've had his bags packed by the door.
06:03Their eldest daughter, Caitlin,
06:06is aware that money is an issue for her mum and dad.
06:10Sometimes you have enough money to buy food
06:14and pay electric and that.
06:19Sometimes you can see it in their faces,
06:22but sometimes they, like, talk to each other about it
06:25and they, like...
06:30..say stuff that sounds upsetting.
06:34I just want them to be happy in what they've got.
06:38But...
06:48The O'Haro family are not unusual.
06:53Across Britain, millions of workers are trapped in jobs
06:57that simply don't pay enough.
06:59More than three million working families can only afford to live
07:03because of government handouts like tax credits and housing benefit.
07:09The idea of topping up wages
07:12goes back to the early 70s and Ted Heath's government.
07:17We are tackling the problem of family poverty
07:22with wider exemptions from charges,
07:25with bigger tax allowances for children
07:29and with the new family income supplement.
07:34Back then, it was claimed by just 71,000 people.
07:43Last year, 3.3 million households claimed
07:48what are now called tax credits.
07:52Throw in other benefits for working families
07:56and that's an annual bill of £28 billion.
08:02The government is paying people to go to work.
08:07It is a huge amount of money.
08:09We do need to address the causes of that high bill.
08:15What would happen to those people if that money was just taken away?
08:20Well, they'd find it extremely hard to make ends meet.
08:24They wouldn't be able to pay bills for essential things
08:29like electricity, gas, water.
08:33I think it's a very significant change in our society.
08:37It's a change in a way that makes it fundamentally much harder
08:43for people with families to keep their head above water.
08:50Even people working for some of Britain's biggest companies
08:55rely on large state payouts.
09:02I've come to Scotland to meet a couple who both work for Tesco.
09:11Between them, Mark Payne, an agnostic,
09:15Between them, Mark Payne, an agnostic,
09:18earn about £15,500 a year.
09:23That's topped up by the government
09:26with tax credits of around £7,000 a year.
09:32If we didn't have tax credits, we could not...
09:35We couldn't eat, we couldn't feed the kids.
09:38So, I don't know what we'd do. I really don't.
09:41£7,000. That's an awful lot of money, isn't it?
09:44Yeah.
09:55Mark is a delivery driver in his hometown of Port Glasgow.
10:03He works full-time.
10:05Hiya.
10:07Tesco pays more than the minimum wage,
10:10but it's still a long way short of what Mark needs to live.
10:21Mark's partner, Agnes, looks after their three children.
10:28She also works for Tesco, part-time as a shop assistant.
10:33But two wages from Britain's biggest private employer
10:37is not enough to get by,
10:39even with a £7,000-a-year top-up from the government.
10:45We just can't make ends meet at all.
10:48As hard as we try and we budget and we...
10:51We can't save. We can never, ever, ever put away money.
10:54There's never money free.
10:59In the past six years,
11:02the cost of basics, including bills, food and clothes,
11:06has risen 28%,
11:08but average earnings by only 9%.
11:25Although Mark and Agnes work at Tesco,
11:28they say they can't afford to do their main shop there.
11:52They look for the best bargains,
11:55but they say they still struggle to buy enough food to last the week.
12:01The past couple of weeks, it's got to the stage where,
12:04say, come Wednesday,
12:06it'll be like there's not enough air for our tea,
12:10we'll just feed the rains.
12:12And we might not eat.
12:14Definitely on a Thursday, it happens every Thursday, doesn't it?
12:19You're lucky if you've got one meal in your stomach a day.
12:23Did you ever imagine that life would be like this?
12:26No.
12:27With you both working?
12:29No.
12:30People, friends of ours, kind of believe the situation that we're in.
12:36So they'll say,
12:37we're used to our work and it shouldn't be like this.
12:40And we still don't understand how it is so hard to live.
12:50There is no simple explanation,
12:53but Mark and Agnes are being affected by long-term changes in our economy.
13:01Low-paid workers saw their spending power increase steadily from the mid-90s.
13:09But that levelled off ten years ago,
13:12and for the past five years, they've been getting poorer.
13:17Big changes in the world economy
13:20are also affecting the sort of work available in Britain.
13:25Globalisation is having an effect on the kind of labour market
13:29and the kind of jobs we have in the United Kingdom.
13:32So there is a longer-term trend, particularly here in the UK,
13:36to have more lower-skilled, low-paid work.
13:41That's dragged a whole new group of people into poverty.
13:45For the first time, the majority of people in poverty are from working households.
13:54I've arrived in Birmingham.
13:56It used to be an industrial heartland
13:59with plenty of well-paid manufacturing jobs.
14:03But now, people are doing different work.
14:06Good afternoon. Thank you for calling National Debt Line.
14:09You're speaking to Steve. How can I help you?
14:12National Debt Line is a free advice service
14:15for people struggling with money.
14:18It's where people turn when they're desperate.
14:22Can I check, have you ever phoned us before for advisors?
14:25This is the first time that you've called us.
14:28Advisors like Elaine say they're speaking to more and more workers
14:33who can't pay their bills.
14:36I would say the majority, really, of people who speak to me are in work
14:40but just still don't have quite enough coming in to make ends meet.
14:45This is the moment when Andrew Hall decided to ask for help.
14:50I've called you because I've had a change in circumstances.
14:54We've got a position where, well, I thought I'm not going to stop
15:00feeding the family.
15:02I've got to do something about the payments, really.
15:06He and his wife Sharon ran up debts of £26,000
15:11when their wages didn't cover their household bills and mortgage.
15:19Andrew's a sheet metal worker and Sharon's a shop assistant.
15:25They earn a basic wage of about £26,000 between them
15:30and used to get about £5,000 a year in tax credits.
15:36But they lost their government top-up when the rules changed.
15:44That meant they couldn't keep up with their debts.
15:48That's when it started going really wrong, wasn't it, really?
15:51Yeah.
15:52It was on catch-up right from there.
15:54And where does that leave you?
15:56I knew the bills, cos I was doing it all, and I said,
16:00we can't do it.
16:02This is not too cold.
16:04After months of worry, they now have a debt management plan.
16:10In that period when you were struggling, what was that like?
16:14Very dark days.
16:15Didn't know when the next food was coming in
16:20and if we'd have to go searching round the cheaper shops
16:24to get the best deals and never, ever went out
16:28and was always arguing any phone calls that come in.
16:32I wouldn't answer the phone.
16:34I just couldn't cope.
16:36I fell out of love with him because of it.
16:43It was very hard, very hard.
16:50For single people, it can be even harder.
16:56If you don't have any children living with you,
16:59your low wage may be pretty much all you have to get by.
17:09Jason May works for a fast food chain in Stockport.
17:14Now, he's on a zero-hours contract.
17:17And he's paid just above the minimum wage.
17:20He earns about £10,000 a year
17:24and gets a government top-up of about £300 a year.
17:35Hi, Richard. Are you OK?
17:37Not too bad.
17:41We've got no carpets down here. Why is that?
17:45I can't afford them. Really? No.
17:48When I first moved in, I had plans and measured it all out
17:51and got prices, but once I'd seen what I was earning...
17:57Life can get very hard for Jason as payday approaches.
18:02Yep. Let's have a look. Are you ready for this? Yeah.
18:08That's not there.
18:10What about in here?
18:12Freezer.
18:14Empty. It's not worth having on.
18:17Fridge. Empty.
18:20I'm leaving milk for a cup of tea.
18:26He's run out of money and hasn't eaten since yesterday.
18:31Today, it's been a long day.
18:34I'm getting really hungry now.
18:37Just feeling a bit weak.
18:40How regularly are things like that, when there's just not enough food?
18:45The majority of the time.
18:47The last fortnight's been harder than normal, but...
18:53..towards the second week before I get paid,
18:55because I get paid fortnightly,
18:57the last few days can get difficult.
19:00How does it affect you as a person, living like this?
19:04It's hard. I'm just hungry.
19:07Can't go out. You see people laughing and joking outside,
19:10coming back from the pub or nightclub, wherever they've been.
19:17I'd like to do that once in a while.
19:20You can't, can you?
19:23Just got to get on with it.
19:35Jason doesn't want us to name the fast-food company he works for.
19:40He fears he'll lose his job.
19:46But a trade organisation that represents them
19:49says people can beat poverty by getting promoted.
19:54There are a huge number of jobs at slightly above minimum wage level.
19:59But there is also a huge number of jobs
20:02that are above that.
20:05What we see is a large number of people
20:08who come in on lower pay scales, but that move up.
20:16Whatever employers say about promotion prospects,
20:20more than one in ten workers earns less than £7 an hour.
20:27If you're in the minimum wage, it's almost inevitable
20:30with some exceptions that you'd have too little.
20:33You're not going to starve,
20:36but whether you can actually do more than survive
20:40and actually have a life is a different question.
20:48The economy is growing again.
20:51Over the last year, about three quarters of a million people
20:54have got into work.
20:58But unions say most new jobs are in low-paid industries,
21:04and that's having a major impact on millions of lives.
21:12You ready, Caitlin?
21:14It's certainly true for Zoe and John,
21:17who've struggled to buy Caitlin a uniform for her new school.
21:23Most of it is second-hand.
21:26Could be a bit bigger, couldn't it?
21:29Put tent pegs in there.
21:32I don't like it.
21:34I'd like to be able to go and buy her a whole brand-new uniform,
21:38everything, but I can't afford an extra £150.
21:42I don't like it.
21:44I'd like to be able to go and buy her a whole brand-new uniform,
21:48everything, but I can't afford an extra £150.
21:52On one shopping spree for just a few tops.
22:00The growth of the working poor
22:02is a problem that's in everybody's interest to solve.
22:06Working families don't want to be trapped in poverty
22:10dependent on benefits,
22:12and taxpayers don't want to be paying out £28 billion a year.
22:18So what's the answer?
22:20Could low-paid workers do more hours
22:23and work their way out of poverty?
22:32Well, for Mark in Port Glasgow,
22:34there's little incentive to work harder,
22:37and it's because he's on a stay handout.
22:40If he works overtime, money is deducted from his tax credits.
22:47It's called clawback,
22:49and he says he loses 76 pence in every extra pound he earns.
22:56Is it worth it?
22:57I mean, if you're going to be stint anyway,
22:59is £2 an hour going to help?
23:01It's not?
23:03I think it's actually degrading.
23:05It's embarrassing?
23:07It's absolutely slap in the face to people
23:09who just want to get on a wee bit.
23:11It's not worth it.
23:13It's not worth it.
23:15It's not worth it.
23:17It's not worth it.
23:19It's not worth it.
23:21It's not worth it.
23:23It's not worth it.
23:24It's not worth it.
23:28It must be depressing for people
23:30to see so much of their extra earnings clawed back.
23:38You've got to take the money back to a certain extent
23:41as people earn more.
23:43The question is, where is the best place to kind of draw that line?
23:49Oh, oh, oh.
23:51Daddy's knee's working.
23:53For Zoe, it's the high price of childcare
23:57that's stopping her from working more hours.
24:02The nursery fees for just Ruby
24:05would mean I'd earn about £1 an hour after paying nursery.
24:10But obviously I've got Amelia as well,
24:13so that'd be even less money.
24:15So I would be paying more money to nursery than I would be earning.
24:20How does that feel, then,
24:22that you can't actually kind of earn your way out of it, if you like?
24:26It's hard. It is hard to know that.
24:33The cost of childcare has risen by 77% over the last ten years.
24:40Nobody quite understands
24:42why childcare costs have gone up so much in recent years.
24:46That can make it virtually not worth your while,
24:52or you can even be worse off by working longer hours.
24:58Jason's hours aren't guaranteed,
25:01and he usually only gets about 30 a week.
25:04He says he wants to earn more.
25:07What about getting another job?
25:09What about trying to get a job that pays a bit more?
25:12I've tried, there is none.
25:15Perhaps if I could drive and broaden my horizons,
25:18but I can't afford to get lessons.
25:20No.
25:25Low pay has become a political battleground,
25:29with both main parties unveiling plans
25:32to tackle the £28 billion problem.
25:36The Tories say they will freeze tax credits for two years
25:41if they win the election.
25:43The fairest way to reduce welfare bills
25:47is to make sure that benefits are not rising faster
25:51than the wages of the taxpayers who are paying for them.
25:57Labour has promised to cut the cost of childcare
26:01and Labour has promised to raise wages instead.
26:06We will raise the minimum wage by £1.50 an hour by 2020
26:11to over £8 an hour,
26:14a rise in pay of £60 a week for a full-time worker
26:18on the minimum wage, or more than £3,000 a year.
26:24Labour says it will encourage profitable companies
26:28to pay even more.
26:31But business leaders have warned
26:33that any sharp increases could cost jobs.
26:38If pay were to go up significantly,
26:40then there is a risk that the number of jobs would go down,
26:44but I think the bigger risk
26:46is that the total reward package beyond pay would be cut
26:53so things like staff discounts,
26:56things like paid breaks, pension contributions.
27:01So what business would look at is other parts of reward,
27:06not just pay.
27:13Poverty experts say that whoever wins the election
27:17will still be paying billions
27:19to top up the wages of the low-paid.
27:23I don't think you can say that somebody has a real plan.
27:28A lot of people have been saying for a long time now
27:32you need to make sure that you pay attention to people's education,
27:37that they're able to earn more
27:40and that you also try to encourage employers to pay more.
27:45But if you improve qualifications
27:47and then people come out qualified and end up stacking shelves,
27:51then that doesn't solve the problem.
27:53So this is an enormous, national, costly problem
27:58to which there's no obvious solution?
28:01There's no easy solution.
28:07And that leaves millions of working families
28:10facing years of hardship.
28:18So for Mark and Agnes, a barbecue in the local park
28:23is the nearest they're likely to come to a holiday.
28:28This is pretty much our equivalent to a week in Ibiza.
28:41We're not the only people, there's a lot of young families
28:44in the same position as we are.
28:47And I suppose you can either complain or you can keep working.
28:53Good girl.
28:56Mark and Agnes' employer, Tesco, declined to be interviewed.
29:01But they told us that it pays one of the highest hourly rates
29:05in the industry,
29:07which is just one aspect of our broad reward package.
29:11Tesco also provides training to support career development.
29:18Muah.
29:19Be good. Love you. Love you too.
29:22Say goodbye to your sisters. Bye-bye. Give me a kiss.
29:25Back in Melksham, it's Caitlin's first day at secondary school.
29:30Muah.
29:31I'll see you when you get home from school then.
29:35All my clothes is, like...
29:39..come from family.
29:43I don't mind, cos I normally get my normal clothes
29:48from, like, friends and family,
29:50cos most of my friends and family are my age.
29:55So, yeah, my friends there.
30:09At home, Zoe and John are still wrestling with the bills.
30:16I do worry about what I spend,
30:18and he always tells me off for spending money.
30:20But, yeah, I'd like to not have to worry about what I was spending.
30:25The way it's going, all I can see is it's getting more and more in debt.
30:28I can't see us getting any better unless certain things change.
30:34And that's many things.
30:36That could be...
30:39..from the childcare, to my work, to your work, to a lot of things.
30:44If things don't change and this carries on the way we are,
30:49we potentially could lose this house.
30:52I've got to be honest.
30:55We're not...
30:58..the arrears we've got.
30:59No, cos we're paying it. No, we're not.
31:02We're not paying all our bills.
31:11Life may get tougher for families like Zoe and John's.
31:17Tax credits are capped at a 1% rise a year,
31:22but living costs are rising faster.
31:25I fear that, for many people, life will get harder.
31:31Unfortunately, when you cut public spending,
31:33the most vulnerable people who have the greatest need for that spending
31:38are the people who suffer.
31:40And so I think, from a short- to medium-term perspective,
31:45things do look quite grim.
31:48In Stockport, Jason's long wait for food is finally coming to an end.
31:55It's just gone midnight
31:57and his wages should now be in his bank account.
32:02I get paid today.
32:04So I've got to make a living.
32:07I've got to make a living.
32:09I've got to make a living.
32:11I've got to make a living.
32:13I've got to make a living.
32:15I get paid today.
32:17So it's...
32:19I know it's early hours of the morning, but I've not eaten for 25 hours.
32:24It's just an all-night garage.
32:26There's a cash machine there that I use to check my money's gone in
32:31so I can get some food and some electric.
32:36I know it's late, but it has to be done.
32:45That's what I've been paid.
32:47£298 and £5 off the government for working tax credits.
32:52Very nice.
32:58So he has just over £300 for the next fortnight.
33:04That needs to cover rent, food and bills.
33:09See you later.
33:12Jason can eat tonight,
33:14but he says that when his wages run out, he'll go hungry again.
33:22Like millions of low-paid people in Britain,
33:25he's working but trapped on the breadline.
33:42It's Checkmate with new tricks
33:44catching a killer in the world of chess.
33:47Next tonight on BBC One.
33:49On BBC Three now, the easy living stops
33:52as more young couples get a wake-up call
33:55experiencing life away from hotel mum and dad.