We shouldn’t have to rely on Stormzy to flag up deprivation and neglect

When Stormzy spoke out at the Brits against Theresa May’s response to Grenfell, it wasn’t just about the disgraceful response to the fire. It was also a reflection of the reality facing people growing up on neglected estates. He has spoken before about his experience of poverty in his childhood, and his struggle to stay on the right track.

Stormzy’s black Britishness is a factor here for, as he vented his frustration, he again highlighted the enduring fact that issues impacting ethnic minorities are rarely prioritised. He gave urgency to the question so many continue to ask: had the Grenfell tragedy occurred in Gloucestershire, were child poverty endemic in Cambridge instead of Tower Hamlets, would we not see a stronger response from the government?

Last year May said we must hold a mirror up to our society. With the race disparity audit, she did just that – releasing a wealth of data that showed entrenched racial inequality was endemic. But there was a specific ill there in plain sight that either she didn’t see or we have chosen not to talk about. The End Child Poverty Coalition reports increases in child poverty in Britain’s most deprived areas and the fact that the top 10 most deprived areas are also the places with the most black and ethnic-minority children. But it’s worse than that. Analysis of census and other data by the Runnymede Trusts suggests that nearly half of ethnic-minority children in Britain today live in poverty conditions.

This is a painful realisation for me. My mother has been a foster carer for more than a decade, and I also saw firsthand the devastating impact of poverty. But I also saw that their trajectories were not irreversible. I had the privilege of seeing a number of children who had arrived hungry and neglected go on to flourish and thrive. I saw how, with support early on, a child’s life can be turned around.

That should be the hope for all children, but what does it say about a nation when it becomes clear that the strongest predictor of a child going to school hungry is the colour of their skin? Child poverty is not just a moral concern, it’s also an issue of racial justice. We should all care about the colour of child poverty, because there can be no integration while race divides the haves and have-nots. We cannot have a cohesive society without an end to poverty, without making social mobility a reality.

The main poverty indicator used in the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's study is the number of households that have income levels of less than 60% of median income. Using the same measure, the UK was ranked 22nd out of 35 in an international league table of child poverty rates in rich nations put together by Unicef in 2012.

In a 2016 league table of all measures of poverty, the UK did rather better compared with other nations. The study, also by Unicef, ranked the UK joint-14th out of 35 rich nations. This was just above the US, but well below many European countries, notably Denmark, Finland and Norway. On some specific measures the UK did less well, notably education, where it ranked 25th out of 39 countries, and health, where it was 19th out of 35.

In the latest official comparison of poverty across the 28 countries in the European Union, the UK ranked 15th. This was some way behind the Czech Republic, Sweden and the Netherlands but ahead of Ireland, Spain and Italy. The European figures confirmed the JRF’s observation that the number of people at risk of poverty in the UK has risen since 2008.

We were promised much, but as Brexit befuddles the government, May’s commitment to tackling “burning injustices” seems to have been shunted to the sidelines. And that spells bad news for the hugely disproportionate numbers of black and Asian children going hungry and cold. Bad news and ruined futures. New research by the University of Geneva suggests that child poverty increases the risk of heart disease and cancer in later life – even if you work your way out of poverty. Ignoring this crisis now will have consequences that last a lifetime. Never mind tackling injustices in this parliament or even the next, the child poverty figures show we’ll be living with the consequences of racial inequality into the 22nd century.

There are many problems interlinked. We were promised an integration white paper after the Casey review, but the Brexit talks have produced a policy road-block, leaving us still waiting for the green paper. We desperately need a comprehensive strategy that outlines clearly how the poverty and inequality faced by ethnic minorities will be tackled.

And we need to see both Labour and the Conservatives commit to a “triple lock” on benefits for children – such as child tax credit and child benefit – so they actually rise with the cost of living. Top-ups from tax credits are a lifeline for families all over the country. Families need a real living wage that covers the costs of food, heat, housing, transport and school uniforms. Naming it the “national living wage” is not enough. Our work at the Runnymede Trust with the Women’s Budget Group showed that the benefit freeze and benefit cap have been a disaster for ethnic-minority women and single mothers. The government’s own impact assessment noted that 37% of those affected were from ethnic minorities. Nearly 200,000 children from the lowest-income families saw their household incomes fall further when the cap was lowered.

Housing costs are a contributor to poverty. Regardless of income level, type of house or age group, ethnic minorities are more likely to live in overcrowded housing. A third of homeless households are from ethnic-minority backgrounds. The distraction of help to buy needs to end. Those on low incomes can wait no longer for genuinely affordable, decent social housing, and once again we see how a policy, or policy vacuum, afflicts the disadvantaged in general and specific groups and communities in particular.

We were told that, with a new analysis and a new focus from government, the inequalities that blight minorities would be addressed, but that has yet to happen, and now we know that the notable victims of that neglect are children. The prime minister should have been their champion. They – and we – shouldn’t have to rely on Stormzy.

• Kimberly McIntosh is policy officer at the Runnymede Trust