Cuts create the big divide

WITH every passing month of coalition Government, the spectre of the 1980s looms larger over Britain. The IPPR report which warns sweeping spending cuts will worsen the North-South divide, because of London’s ability to hoover up the majority of business and philanthropic support for voluntary and community groups, is only the latest evidence of how this country risks being split in two.

In London, a recovering financial services sector provides generous incomes – funded by the taxpayer in the case of some banks – and prosperity for many despite Britain’s faltering economic recovery. In the North, particularly in Yorkshire where there is a high rate of public sector employment, Government cuts bite hard with the threat of a double-dip recession inhibiting enterprise.

The result is that the Big Society begins to look more like the divided society. As this newspaper has frequently shown, Yorkshire charities are having to make heart-rending cuts because grants from local authorities, quangos and businesses are drying up. The poor, the sick and the elderly are seeing their quality of life worsen because of decisions made in Westminster and Whitehall.

This is unfair, given Labour’s investment in the North which, although sometimes controversial, was substantial. Of course, not all of Labour’s money was spent wisely, with the salaries of public sector executives rising too far, but the answer to this problem is not to let whole communities suffer.

The reality of austerity Britain is a North-South divide entrenched by front-loaded Government cuts and the abolition of regional development agencies. David Cameron’s Big Society has little to say when the number of million pound-plus donations to provide resources for social action in Yorkshire is dwarfed by that in London.

The solution suggested by the IPPR, that in areas where private sector giving is weaker the Government pledges to match a proportion of business donations, is unlikely to happen. Instead it is up to Yorkshire’s private sector to take the lead and, matched by innovation from charities, ensure those at the bottom of society are not left to suffer. We cannot go back to the past.