Households with children are at a higher risk of poverty than other households. Large families and single parents are at the highest risk of fuel poverty.
Since water was privatised in 1989, household water bills have risen faster than the rate of inflation. On 19 December OFWAT announced an average increase in charges of 36 per cent above inflation over the next five years, with considerable variations between companies ranging from a 53 per cent increase for Southern Water customers to 21 per cent for customers of Northumbrian Water and Wessex Water. Across England and Wales, water bills will rise by an average of £123 a year from April.
I had an interesting meeting I wanted to tell you about. I had the opportunity to meet with the Minister for Employment and the Secretary of State for Education at 10 Downing Street.
Last week, the House of Commons’ Education Committee published a report on persistent absence and support for disadvantaged pupils. There is growing concern about rising levels of pupil absence following the pandemic. Attendance data highlights that children from lower-income households have lower attendance rates than their peers. Children eligible for free school meals are more than twice as likely as their peers to be persistently absent from school.
The London Mayor’s announcement this week that all primary school pupils will get a free school meal for at least one year is a huge step forward. At CPAG we estimate that 210,000 children in poverty in London do not currently qualify for free school meals because the national income threshold for eligibility is shamefully low. The Mayor’s scheme will go a significant way towards addressing this problem by providing a daily hot meal to around 90,000 of those children – with the other 120,000 being children in poverty in secondary school.
This paper is a revision of the analysis which was published by Child Poverty Action Group on 1 August. On 2 August new gas and electricity price cap estimates were published for October 2022 and January 2023 which slightly lowered the estimates for October and slightly increased them for January.
