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.
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.
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.
'This was a "see no poverty, hear no poverty" budget from a government in denial. The Chancellor made claim to a truly national recovery throughout his speech but this is a ‘See no poverty, Hear no poverty’ Budget which continues to leave children and the low paid behind.
Commenting on today’s publication of the government’s child poverty strategy for 2014-17, Alison Garnham, Chief Executive, Child Poverty Action Group, said: “We welcome the Government’s continued commitment to ending child poverty by 2020 but today’s strategy isn’t good news for a generation of children that needs the government to invest in their childhoods and life chances...
Responding to the hard-hitting report today from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission on the government’s child poverty strategy, Alison Garnham, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said: “The Coalition established the Commission as an expert watchdog on child poverty, so when it says the government’s child poverty strategy lacks credibility Ministers must do something about it...
Commenting on a report today by Save the Children UK warning of a massive rise in child poverty by 2020, Alison Garnham, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said: “The warnings of a surge in child poverty are bleak, but hardly surprising when families have been put in the frontline of austerity and the back of the queue for the recovery...
