Welcome shelving of plans to cut universal free school meals; no plans for tackling rising child poverty, despite promise to tackle ‘burning injustice’ of poverty; urgent need for a coherent social justice agenda.
We entered this general election campaign with child poverty at 4 million, projected to rise to 5.1 million by the end of the next parliament (assuming it’s a five-year term). The next government must get to grips with the underlying causes of poverty to make sure all children have a great start in life – and the opportunity to thrive. We have set out the practical steps politicians can take after 8 June to tackle child poverty.
Download our new resource for people who work with low-income families. To help you think about how changes to the benefit system affect the families that you work with and what you can do to help. The information in this booklet is based on findings from CPAG in Scotland’s Early Warning System.
Unicef’s analysis of child wellbeing across the developed world, released today, is emphatic that increasing family incomes is a critical tool to boost children’s educational success, health and happiness. In saying this, it is issuing a pretty clear warning to the United Kingdom government that poverty-producing policies will deprive children of happy, healthy and secure childhoods.
The next Scottish Government will be confronted with an imminent rise in child poverty, with a projected 50% increase by 2020 largely driven by UK tax and benefit policies. With this in mind our programme for government sets out a range of measures aimed at prioritising the eradication of child poverty in Scotland and minimising its damaging effects on children, families, services and the country’s economy. Read CPAG in Scotland's Programme for Scottish Government 2016 - 2021 here.
'Hard Choices: Reducing the need for food banks in Scotland' explores in depth the stories of six families accessing food banks in one local authority area in central Scotland. It uses them to illustrate the findings of wider UK research of which they were a part, and to discuss the implications for policy makers, services providers and employers in Scotland.
Child benefit is one of the strongest tools we have in reducing poverty, and it is vital that it is protected. But it can’t do the job on its own. We urgently need a comprehensive, action-focused strategy for reducing and then ending child poverty. The road ahead is long, and so we must start by protecting what we already have.
Newly re-elected, David Cameron has appointed his cabinet to lead the 2015 government. But what will he, and his ministers, do to turn back a rising tide of child poverty? In addition to the Prime Minister himself, George Osborne and Iain Duncan-Smith will be back in their pre-election roles of Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
Whoever wins on May 7 will be confronted by a child poverty crisis. That’s why CPAG today publishes its Programme for Government, a document setting out what the next Government must do to put the UK on track to end child poverty.
