Before the UK general election in July 2024, the Conservative government cut national insurance (NI) contribution rates for employees and the self-employed (twice). More radically, it announced a longer-term intention to abolish these contributions entirely, leaving the future of NI benefits unclear. But this was against a backdrop of a chronic lack of well-informed debate about the NI system and social security generally in the UK. Fran Bennett tries to put this right.
Many children and families entered the pandemic facing poverty and structural disadvantage, and were failed – and continue to be failed - by the inadequacy of the economic measures introduced in response to the pandemic, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) told Module 9 of the Covid-19 inquiry today.
In the absence of leadership from Westminster in recent years, devolved governments and local authorities have developed their own strategies to tackle child poverty. The UK government has now committed to developing a UK-wide cross-government child poverty strategy, which is a hugely welcome step. What key lessons from experiences of developing child poverty strategies in the devolved nations should inform the future development of a UK-wide cross-government child poverty strategy?
As MPs return to Parliament today, new analysis from Child Poverty Action Group shows 10,000 children have been pulled into poverty by the two-child limit since the government took office. That’s 109 children each day since July 5th.
This briefing looks at free school meals (FSMs) in Yorkshire and the Humber, including new statistics on the number of children in poverty in each local authority missing out on this entitlement.
Breakfast clubs are a welcome start but meeting Labour’s ambition to end child poverty will need much more from this government. And even with a pledge of no return to the past, austerity is the reality for more and more children as they’re hit by the two-child limit. The policy must be scrapped – and soon - if the Government is to deliver on its mission to reduce child poverty.
England has a much higher proportion of children in poverty who are ineligible for free school meals compared to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland but all nations can do more, new analysis from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) reveals.
Across the UK, millions of children receive a free school meal (FSM) each day at school. But many miss out. Previous CPAG analysis estimated that, across England, 900,000 school-age children in poverty (one in three school-age children) don’t qualify for a FSM under either the national universal infant provision or means-tested schemes. This new piece of analysis shows how this compares to national FSM schemes in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The analysis also looks at how this figure is broken down by region in England.
