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.'
'The taskforce is a welcome first step towards fulfilling the government’s pledge to bring in an ambitious child poverty strategy. But with a record number of kids in poverty now, scrapping the two-child limit on benefits has to happen in the government’s first Budget. The two-child limit is driving up child poverty more than any other policy, children need it to be removed as a priority.'
‘It’s good to hear that ending child poverty is central for Labour, but the best way to achieve that is by ending the two-child limit on benefits which is driving so many children into hardship. A child poverty reduction plan is essential, but scrapping the two-child limit would have to be step one.'
The First Minister said during his leadership campaign that he wanted to see the Scottish child payment rise to £30 per week in his first budget. It is bitterly disappointing for struggling families that he has failed to deliver.
Campaigners at the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) in Scotland are calling for tax and spending decisions to do more to prioritise hard up families ahead of tomorrow’s Scottish budget.
First Minister is right to prioritise childcare, but more direct cash support still needed to meet child poverty targets say campaigners and “disappointment” at lack of further detail on First Minister’s commitment to increase Scottish child payment to £30.
