The Election Charter below is Greater Manchester Law Centre’s perspective on what policy-makers could do in the next government to improve the lives of low-income residents of Greater Manchester.
Greater Manchester Law Centre (GMLC) provides free legal advice and representation on employment, welfare benefits, housing and public law to the residents of Greater Manchester.
We campaign for access to justice and for the rights and freedoms of the communities we work within. We are always happy to discuss with local and national politicians about how to ensure positive change for the people we advise and support.
Access to justice
For many decades, social welfare law has been under attack. Governments have limited both the ‘scope’ and the ‘eligibility’ of legal aid, limiting who can access free legal advice, and what problems the government will fund advice for. Legal aid rates have been frozen since 1996, which has meant many law firms simply cannot afford to run services or train new staff. Half of all Law Centres have closed their doors in the last 10 years. A majority of people now fall into the ‘justice gap’, not eligible for legal aid but also unable to afford expensive private advice. This means that low-income people struggling with legal problems often go without support. GMLC ran an exhibition called ‘Ten Years (In)Justice earlier this year, interviewing people about their struggles with the justice system after the legal aid cuts. You can watch the short film or read the interviews here.
GMLC asks incoming MPs, mayors and councillors to vote and argue for:
- An increase to the legal aid eligibility thresholds to make more people eligible for free advice.
- Widening legal aid scope to bring lost areas of law back into the legal aid scheme, such as debt, welfare benefits, employment, and family law.
- An increase in legal aid rates so that free advice services can continue to survive and grow.
- The restoration of public funding to train new social welfare lawyers.
- Opposition to policy or legislation changes that seek to narrow people’s right to take legal action, and reversal of recent legislation that does so (e.g. the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022).
- Working with access to justice-oriented organisations such as Legal Action Group and Law Centres Network to discuss other changes needed to make legal aid work effective and sustainable.
- Defending the right to protest and the right to take industrial action so that people can win change and justice for themselves, including by repealing the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023.
A safe, secure home for all
Going into this general election, the housing crisis should be an urgent priority for any incoming government. The quality of the housing stock is poor and worsening. Following deaths and hospitalisation of children due to damp, mould and other disrepair in recent years, urgent action needs to be taken in both the social and private sector. Statistics show that evictions are at their highest since the Covid pandemic, and homelessness is skyrocketing. Thousands of people are left homeless or rough sleeping every year, and there are now over 100,000 households in temporary accommodation. People are waiting up to a decade, and in some cases longer, to get an offer of social housing. Even though early intervention in housing problems can stop these harms and save the government money, 42% of England and Wales does not have access to a housing legal aid provider as a result of cuts to legal aid funding. The services that do still exist – like GMLC – cannot meet the demand for housing services.
GMLC asks incoming MPs, mayors and councillors to vote and argue for:
- An immediate end to Section 21 and other ‘no-fault’ evictions.
- More council housing provision offering good quality, secure, truly affordable homes.
- An end to Right to Buy so that council and social homes stay publicly owned.
- Removal of ‘priority need’ and ‘intentional homelessness’ as ways for local authorities to avoid their duties to homeless people.
- Funding for Councils’ homelessness departments and enforcement teams.
- An end to Public Spaces Protection Orders and the Vagrancy Act 1824, which unjustly criminalise rough sleepers.
- Rent controls in the private sector.
- An end to discrimination in the housing market.
- Landlord licensing across the board, not just for HMOs and selected boroughs.
- A free-to-access Property Register showing landlord and estate agent details and important information about enforcement and repairs.
- Bringing disrepair fully back into scope for housing legal aid.
- A review of planning law to ensure land is being used for the benefit of all – for example to build more affordable homes.
A fair social security system
GMLC’s welfare benefits service fights to get everyone the benefits they are entitled to. Since the introduction of Universal Credit, recent governments have made the benefit system more and more punitive. Benefits spending has been slashed wherever possible, leading to enormous burdens on households forced to live at a poverty-level income. The use of sanctions and deductions leaves many claimants unable to afford basic essentials. Single parents have seen huge cuts to their income due to policies like the benefit cap and two-child rule, leaving families picking between eating and heating. Disabled people have been forced to jump through hoops to get their entitlements: stressful assessments, complicated forms and unfair refusals. Threats to end Limited Capability for Work (which shields some sick people from benefit sanctions) have left many worried about their future. Many deaths have been linked to failures in the benefits system, and this number is climbing. An incoming government would need to review the whole system to ensure it provides a real safety net for those who need it, rather than driving people into poverty and illness.
GMLC asks incoming MPs, mayors and councillors to vote and argue for:
- Replacement of Universal Credit and the patchwork of other benefits with a universal income guarantee that is set at a rate that reflects the cost of living.
- Scrapping the benefit cap and two-child rule.
- The automatic right to disability benefits for people with certain conditions, without the need for the current obstacle course of benefit applications.
- The preservation and extension of Limited Capability to Work.
- An end to the sanctions regime that forces people into destitution without any evidence that it incentivises people to seek work.
- Raising housing benefits to meet a higher proportion of rents.
- Extension of Legal Aid to include welfare rights cases.
Better employment rights
GMLC’s employment service sees dozens of people a month for one-off advice about disputes with their employers, for example over unpaid wages, dismissals and discrimination. We have seen employers exploiting the strict immigration system to bully and intimidate migrant workers, for example in the care sector. We opposed recent proposals to re-introduce fees to the Employment Tribunal, which would further hamper access to justice for the poorest workers trying to seek recourse. Recent waves of strike action have sought to pressure employers to pay better wages as prices have climbed, but real-terms wages are just £16 a week higher than in 2010. Gig economy-style contracts that let employers set unfair terms have flourished. Enforcement mechanisms for workers are very poor due to tight time limits on action and a lack of advice and support. The next government should be looking to improve workers’ pay and conditions and put in place better enforcement mechanisms to end in-work poverty and exploitation.
GMLC asks incoming MPs, mayors and councillors to vote and argue for:
- Statutory sick pay to be paid from the first day of illness with no waiting days.
- The qualifying period in employment for unfair dismissal claims to be reduced from the current period of 2 years to 6 months.
- Increasing the time limit for all employment tribunal claims to 6 months plus the period spent in early conciliation.
- The Insolvency Service to pay Employment Tribunal awards when the employer is unable to pay but is not insolvent.
- Taking action to improve enforcement mechanisms against employers, for example by setting up an enforcement agency or giving much wider powers to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
- Opposition to any move to introduce Employment Tribunal fees.
- Rebalancing power between employers and workers by ending fire and rehire, and addressing the use of zero-hours and gig economy contracts.
- Rejecting and reversing measures that leave migrant workers at the whim of employers, such as expensive visa fees.
- Opposition to attacks on workers’ right to organise in trade unions, and reversal of legislation that limits industrial action (e.g. the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023).
End the hostile environment for migrants
Things have become harder for low-income migrants to the UK due to a ramping up of anti-migrant policies. Hostile environment policies have embedded systematic suspicion, cruelty and racism into other systems – for example, by limiting people’s housing options through Right to Rent checks. Many people are forced to wait over 10 years before they can apply to settle in the UK long-term, and the Home Office’s vicious policies can lead to applications being rejected on technicalities. The ongoing Windrush scandal shows how immigration systems set up to punish migrants can lead to enormous injustices. Asylum seekers and refugees are treated particularly badly, threatened with deportation to Rwanda, or allowed to stay in the UK but forced to live on a weekly income of only £49.18 per person while they wait years for an outcome. Recently, many will have seen the atrocious conditions in asylum seeker accommodation, including the Bibby Stockholm barge. Rather than competing about who can be harshest to migrants and asylum seekers, the incoming government needs to tackle racist myths head on and recognise people’s rights to settle in the UK and to seek asylum from war and hardship.
GMLC asks any incoming MPs to vote and argue for:
- An end to punitive deportation laws;
- An end to the slow violence of immigration destitution;
- Removal of the ‘no recourse to public funds’ condition;
- Routes to settlement be capped at 5 years, rather than the existing 10 years;
- Access to the basic services we all need – health, care, education, housing, benefits – regardless of immigration status;
- Effective and efficient compensation schemes for individuals and communities harmed by racist controls, including those impacted by Windrush and the Rwanda Plan;
- An end to the condemnation of those seeking safety in the UK and a fair process for deciding asylum claims in the UK;
- Unravelling hostile environment policies embedded across areas of the law;
- Celebrating our migrant heritage and migrant future.
If you would like to discuss any of these issues with the Law Centre, you can email our Director Jason Tetley and Campaigns Officer Kate Bradley at development@gmlaw.org.uk.
