Gordon Brown: Why I’m backing The Independent’s Christmas charity appeal

Every Christmas, I read one of the seven lessons at a traditional carol service. On Tuesday, it was the reading of Mary and Joseph’s arrival in Bethlehem, and the story of the holy family failing to find room at the inn.

This year, the reading had an added poignancy. A few miles from Bethlehem, war has destroyed the lives of more than 1,000 Israeli citizens in the most violent of massacres and has now left perhaps as many as 20,000 Palestinian men, women and children dead and tens of thousands of families homeless in the Gaza Strip.

Like Jesus, babies there will be born this week in makeshift accommodation and without medical support.

And while, thankfully, the scourge of conflict remains far from our own shores, the corrosive impact of poverty is also depriving too many families and too many children of a warm bed here, too. Two thousand years after Christ was born in a stable, there are tens of thousands of British children for whom there is literally no room.

The figures are shocking. More than 100,000 children – more than the capacity of Wembley Stadium – are homeless, living either on the streets or in temporary accommodation moving from place to place

Nearly 900,000 children face bedtime this evening without an actual bed to sleep in. Of them, it is estimated that 681,000 make do with a sofa or share with family members, while 336,000 families have been unable to repair or replace broken beds for their children.

That is the hidden reality of Britain’s poverty in 2023: a state of affairs I never thought I would see again in my lifetime. And the blunt truth is that 2024 is likely to be worse, not better.

That runs against the popular perception. With the war in Ukraine no longer on the front pages, and with inflation falling and energy prices easing off, there is a growing assumption that the worst is over and that the cost of fuel and food will once again be affordable to Britain’s poorest families.

If you are on the breadline, however, that is not the case. Prices on everything, from telecoms to toiletries, are still rising across the board. It means that a total of 4.7 million adults in the UK are now struggling to afford to eat every day and 2 million children are at risk of missing their next meal.

Whatever savings families had managed to build up have now gone. Government emergency support is running down and is no longer as readily available. And the last line of defence – charity – is also less able to cope than before.

With family budgets stretched across the country, donations to charities have halved in a year. People who have given the little they can to people who have nothing now have no more to give.

It is easy to despair. But across the UK, there are numerous bright stars still shining. Zarach, the Leeds-based charity which is being supported by The Independent’s Christmas appeal, is one such example.

As this newspaper has reported, it began when deputy headteacher Bex Wilson noticed a boy in her class struggling to pay attention. She then discovered the boy didn’t have a bed, and was instead being forced to share a sofa with his two siblings.

In the last month, Zarach – backed by The Independent – has raised enough money to provide 540 beds for children in time for Christmas. It will have a huge impact on the families that benefit, and the charity continues to fundraise all year round.

I offer my own whole-hearted support to the appeal and urge readers to support it. It’s the kind of bedding bank which, in 2024, we will need right across the country.

My own focus will be to expand the growing network of “multibanks” now in Scotland, Greater Manchester and Wales. I hope these will soon be established across the UK. These are food banks, bedding banks, clothes banks, furnishing banks, toiletries and baby banks rolled into one and allow a holistic approach to meeting the needs of each family in distress.

These bring together local firms which have spare produce and surplus goods with charities that know who needs help. They then provide a “one-stop shop” for needy families offering goods they otherwise could not afford.

The response from companies has already been remarkable. Firms starting with the biggest, Amazon, led in the UK by John Boumphrey, have donated unclaimed goods and provided logistical expertise. The UK’s Textile Services Association, kickstarted by Fishers Laundry Services, has been providing thousands of nearly new duvets, towels, sheets and pillows that have only been used for a limited time in hotels but are relaundered for long-term use by families in need. Under the leadership of Gareth Jenkins, Accrol, the toilet paper producer, has been incredibly generous offering a million toilet rolls as a donation.

Food companies like PepsiCo have provided porridge oats. Reckitt has donated a massive number of Dettol wipes. Mine and my wife’s own website thanks all the companies – too many to name here – who are helping locally as well as nationally. Working with other charities like In Kind Direct, The Felix Project and The Trussell Trust, we are using surplus and repurposed goods where they are needed – helping families and cutting pollution at the same time.

This collaboration between business and charity – what I have called Britain’s “fourth sector” – offers a coalition of compassion and new hope as we enter the new year.

With charities like Zarach working in local communities, and with businesses mobilising to ensure unwanted goods and products can be recycled, we can come to the aid of Britain’s poor. The need is great – but Britain’s capacity for generosity is greater. Let 2024 be the year when there is, finally, a room at the inn.

To donate to our Christmas appeal, click here