Health and wellbeing

Co-locating welfare and legal advice within health care can make social rights easier to access, but must not distract government from addressing the systemic causes of poverty and hardship.…Read more

Academics Stand Against Poverty UK argues that the Budget offers inadequate, short-term poverty relief instead of lasting action on social security, housing and inequality, urging the government to tax wealth fairly and establish a stronger financial safety net for households. In September, ASAP UK Trustees urged Andy Burnham to treat tackling poverty as the foundation Read More

The 2026 midterms show that economic concerns have overtaken anti-CRT, DEI and “woke” culture-war politics, though the divisions they created remain deeply embedded in American society.…Read more

In this policy briefing, Heather Buckingham, author of 'A Taste for Change' examines how more than 2.5 million people in the UK lived in households that used a food bank in 2024–25. This highlights the urgent need to tackle poverty, improve access to secure, fairly paid work and strengthen social security so that everyone can afford the essentials…Read more

Can we create a world where food banks are in the past and everyone can afford the essentials? In this discussion with Jess Miles, Heather Buckingham explains the importance of believing that everyone matters and making sure that everyone can live a healthy life without shame or stigma.…Read more

ASAP UK urges Andy Burnham to make tackling poverty a central priority through stronger social security, child-poverty action, decent wages, social housing and treating poverty as a health issue.…Read more

Helen Keane, David Moore and Mats Ekendahl argue that Andy Burnham’s celebration of pubs and moderate drinking highlights a tension between alcohol’s genuine social benefits and the increasingly dominant public-health focus on its harms, which can overlook class and gender inequalities and the value of community and pleasure.…Read more

The policy briefing argues that unpaid carers and their organisations must be central to social care reform. Drawing on the history of the carers’ movement, it shows how carers’ organisations have raised awareness, influenced policy and developed practical solutions in the UK and internationally.…Read more

Graham Box and Kenneth Chambaere, authors of 'Assisted Dying', argue that while reintroducing the previous assisted dying bill may be politically practical, Westminster should instead learn from Jersey’s more consultative and flexible model to create safer, more widely supported legislation.…Read more

Sandra Duffy argues that the EHRC’s new guidance, following the 2025 Supreme Court ruling, effectively excludes trans people from equal participation in public life by restricting access to gendered spaces and forcing segregation, which the author says undermines their rights, dignity, and safety.…Read more