In response to news that the UK government's child poverty strategy is delayed until autumn, Alison Garnham, the chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said:
“There are 4.5 million children already in poverty and another 109 are pulled into poverty every day by the two-child limit alone. If this government is serious in its commitment to the nation’s children, it can’t keep waiting for the stars to align before taking action. It must urgently invest in children and their families, starting with scrapping the two-child limit.”
Research published today shows there is overwhelming public support for government to take action on child poverty. In polling undertaken by Public First, 89% of those asked agreed that no child in the UK should live in poverty and 74% agreed that national government has a role to play in reducing child poverty.
'Stealth social security cuts bring neither stability nor security to struggling families and will push child poverty even higher. Growth and better living standards are not achieved by taking money from families with the least. Government must invest in social security support - not cut it - for the most vulnerable, or risk being remembered as the Labour administration under whose watch child poverty continued to rise.'
Reported cuts to disability payments risk undermining wider government efforts to reduce child poverty, new analysis by Child Poverty Action Group shows.
Child Poverty Action Group is warning that the government’s child poverty strategy will most likely fail to reduce child poverty unless it scraps the two-child limit and has binding targets.
The Chancellor brought good news on breakfast clubs and universal credit deductions but this was not a Budget of bold action on child poverty. The Chancellor missed a golden chance to scrap the two-child limit, a policy that will pull 16,000 extra children into poverty by the time the government’s child poverty taskforce reports in spring.
We welcome the government’s ambition on child poverty but this budget played for time that far too many children and families can’t afford. The spending review next spring will have to deliver much more to make a significant difference for children in poverty.
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.
'The new government pledged an ambitious approach to tackling child poverty but there was little to help achieve that aim in the speech today. The two-child limit is the biggest driver of rising child poverty and teachers, struggling parents and even children themselves can testify to the harm the policy is causing to kids day in, day out. All eyes will now be on government’s first budget, which must commit to scrapping this policy. Delaying its abolition will harm many more young lives and undercut the government’s poverty-reduction plans.'
