CPAG'S post-Budget briefing

Our post-Budget briefing outlines our response to the announcements on: 

• National insurance
• Child benefit 
• Budgeting advance loans in universal credit 
• Childcare 
• Household support fund 
• Employment support 
• Disability benefit assessments 

There was very little in this Budget for children and families living in poverty. The Chancellor said yesterday that this government does not pass on its bills to the next generation, but the 4.2 million children living in poverty today are the next generation. Child poverty is scarring, and the decisions taken yesterday will leave a legacy of cold homes, empty tummies and crumbling classrooms. We are in urgent need of a plan to tackle child poverty.  

Increasing child benefit, expanding free school meals, and abolishing the two-child limit and the benefit cap would immediately lift a million children out of poverty, and ensure that all families are provided with a basic level of support to help with the costs of raising a child. This is the ambition we need to see from the government.