We can no longer accept broken economic systems, cost-of-living summit told

It is time to put an end to the “exploitation of working people” and to no longer accept “broken economic systems”, delegates at a cost-of-living summit have heard.

The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) and the Poverty Alliance hosted the conference in Glasgow on Friday, with attendees working together to develop a joint platform on how to tackle the ongoing crisis.

Roz Foyer, STUC general secretary, told delegates it is time to “get angry, come together and to start fighting back” against a wealth gap.

She said people across the UK are “facing not just a crisis, but an absolute emergency which is causing suffering for a huge proportion of people right across the country”.

In her opening address, she added: “Much as the UK Government want us to believe differently, this cost-of-living crisis is not simply some unfortunate result of any single unexpected factor.

“First and foremost, this is a crisis that for far too many pre-dated the pandemic or Brexit. This is a long-term crisis of income distribution in our economy, and the imbalance of power between the haves and have-nots in our society.”

Peter Kelly, director of the Poverty Alliance, said the crisis is like “no other” he has seen in the three decades since the network was established.

“I don’t remember another time like this,” he said.

“We’ve been through some really tough times over the last 30 years, poverty-wise. I don’t recall anything just quite like this.”

Mr Kelly called the situation “extraordinary”, adding: “There are workers I’ve heard about who are struggling to get to work because they can’t fill up their car.

“It is also about, can they afford to put their heating on? There’s people who are going to food banks and unable to cook the food they might have been able to get there because they’re having to decide, ‘what do I spend my precious pounds on in terms of my energy?’.”

Richard Hardy, from Scotland’s Just Transition Commission, warned of a need to change “where the cost falls” in the country’s efforts to decarbonise.

Mr Hardy spoke of his concerns over a “massive impact” arising from projects being undertaken across Scotland, including the introduction of Low Emission Zones.

The crackdown on cars which fail to meet emissions standards is a “tax on the working class”, he said, with those who cannot afford to purchase newer models facing penalties if they enter the zone.

Ms Foyer told the PA news agency that she hopes the conference will be an opportunity to acknowledge the cost-of-living crisis and its impact, with a view to come away with “practical demands” for both the UK and Scottish governments in order to take “real and urgent action”.

She added: “We need public sector pay to keep up with inflation and deal with this cost-of-living crisis.

“But we also need to make sure that things like rent caps are applied immediately. We need to look at things like transport costs in Scotland, and making sure that we’re actually dealing with that through things like municipal bus companies.

“We’ve just taken our rail into public ownership, we should be making sure that rail transport is affordable.”

Governments should also look at taxing higher earners more, in addition to business rates, Ms Foyer added.