Cost-of-living crisis a 'humanitarian catastrophe' and system is 'not working' for poorest, leading public health expert warns
17 January 2023, 18:41 | Updated: 18 January 2023, 02:13
World-leading public health expert Sir Michael Marmont called the UK's cost-of-living crisis a "humanitarian catastrophe" and said the current system is "not working" for society's poorest.
Sir Michael Marmont, Professor of Epidemiology at University College London told Andrew Marr the (UK’s) said the impact of the crisis was catastrophic and said the stresses and struggles of trying to get by are 'damaging to health'.
Sir Michael was previously the President of the World Medical Association, and is the author of The Health Gap: the challenge of an unequal world (2015) and Status Syndrome: how your place on the social gradient directly affects your health (2004).
Speaking on Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, Sir Michael insisted, "if health is declining, it means that society isn't working… An objective assessment would be to say, the current system is not working for the poorest in our society".
When asked by Andrew how the UK’s cost-of-living crisis is affecting public health, Sir Michael replied it is a "humanitarian catastrophe":
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‘It's very difficult to predict. It's difficult to explain the past, let alone predict the future. But all the evidence would suggest people cannot afford to heat their dwellings.
When challenged on whether it was appropriate to describe the situation as a "humanitarian catastrophe" Sir Michael replied: "I think when a two-year-old boy dies, because of mould in his home, what would you call it? This is a preventable tragedy.
"I didn't want to bandy words around and cheapen words. But when a two-year-old boy dies because of mould in his home, this is a tragedy, and it's the tip of the iceberg.’
"Food insecurity in September, and it's probably got worse since then, in September last year, one in six households without children were in food insecurity.
"One in four households with children were in food insecurity, that means missing meals, not eating when you're hungry, that will damage health, living in cold homes that will damage health.
"The stress of the struggle to try and make ends meet will damage health.
"It'll damage physical health, and it will damage mental health. So, the cost-of-living crisis is indeed a humanitarian catastrophe.’
Two-year-old Awaab Ishak died in December 2020 from a respiratory condition caused by mould in the one-bedroom housing association flat where he lived with his parents, Faisal Abdullah and Aisha Amin, in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.
Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH), which owned the flat, was stripped of its funding following the tragedy and its chief executive, Gareth Swarbrick, was fired after it emerged that he had earned £170,000 during the year of the child's death.
The UK is facing a crisis in the cost of living, with households hit with spiralling energy bills, and rising food costs and a fall in real incomes driven by high levels of inflation.
Inflation rocketed to a 41-year-high last year, but has since eased, falling to 10.7 percent in November.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to halve inflation by the end of this year.
