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.
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...
Commenting on today’s publication of the government consultation on their new child poverty strategy, Alison Garnham, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said: “After a long wait, we’re disappointed to see a list that contains little new, or likely to make a dent in the numbers of children growing up in poverty...
On the eve of the publication of the government’s new child poverty strategy, the government’s adviser on child poverty and social mobility, Alan Milburn, has called for the government to maintain its focus on income poverty and warned that an economic recovery without a ‘social recovery’ would not be a success.
Responding to today’s first report from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, Alison Garnham, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said: “The Commission’s verdict is clear: the Coalition’s current child poverty strategy is failing and child poverty is set to rise...
Responding to the publication today of new projections for UK child poverty rates, prepared by the Institute for Fiscal Studies for the Northern Ireland Executive (OFMDFM), Alison Garnham, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said: “We always put our children’s needs first in family life, and we should do as a nation too. But today’s dire projections reveal we are in danger of failing the next generation...
Today’s new child poverty figures confirm that while the ambitious target for 2010 was not reached, it drove forward major progress reducing child poverty across all measures: absolute poverty reduced by more than half (from 3.4 million children to 1.4 million children since 1999); relative poverty reduced by 1.1 million children (from 3.4 million to 2.3 million since 1999); material deprivation reduced by 300,000 children (from 2.2 million to 1.9 million since 2005).