This is fantastic news and a game-changer for children and families. At last more kids will get the food they need to learn and thrive and millions of parents struggling to make ends meet will get a bit of breathing space. We hope this is a sign of what’s to come in autumn’s child poverty strategy, with government taking more action to meet its manifesto commitment to reduce child poverty in the UK.
Eleven major charities have today written to the Chancellor urging her to make a commitment in next week’s spending review to abolish the two-child limit and benefit cap in the Autumn Budget. The charities, including Child Poverty Action Group, Citizens Advice, Save the Children UK, Trussell and The Children’s Society, work with children and low-income families. Their letter warns that the two-child limit has already pulled 37,000 children into poverty since the government took office.
What is the evidence on the impact of the benefit cap on children and families in poverty? In particular, how do high housing costs affect experiences of the cap and people's ability to escape it? And why is it so important that the government scraps the policy?
This briefing provides information on policies announced in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, alongside policy areas where opportunities to support children’s wellbeing were missed in this legislation.
This short report looks at the challenges facing schools when implementing a means-tested school meal system, and the debt families are incurring for school meals in primary schools across England.
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.