Press release

Landmark Supreme Court judgement that denying bereavement benefits to unmarried, cohabiting partners with children is incompatible with human rights law

The overall cost of a child over 18 years (including rent and childcare) is £150, 753 for a couple and £183,335 for a lone parent. But work doesn’t pay low-income families enough to meet a no-frills standard of living, new research from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) shows.

Working people claiming universal credit are having their benefits capped when they shouldn’t be, and losing the effects of ‘work allowances’ worth up to £258 per month simply because of the dates on which their paydays and universal credit 'assessment periods' happen to fall, new evidence from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) shows.

Child Poverty Action Group welcomes the Work and Pensions Secretary’s announcement today that arrears for up to 70,000 disabled people who were underpaid when they were moved from incapacity benefit (IB) to employment and support allowance (ESA) will be backdated to the date that they moved to ESA.

Responding today (12/7/18) to the publication of a hard hitting report from MSPs on reducing the attainment gap, John Dickie, Director of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) in Scotland, said: “This report makes quite clear that children growing up in families struggling on low incomes face real cost barriers that too often prevent them from getting the most out of what Scotland’s schools have to offer. The cost of school trips, classroom materials, school clothing and school meals all put pressure on hard pressed families and exclude children from learning opportunities.

DWP statistics published today show  71,000 families have lost entitlement to child allowances in tax credits or universal credit in the first year of the ‘two-child  policy’.  

Commenting on today's National Audit Office report on Universal Credit, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group Alison Garnham said: "It was sobering enough to learn from the DWP's own survey last week that four in ten people claiming universal credit have financial problems many months into their claim..."

Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has called for key cuts to Universal Credit to be reversed following new DWP evidence showing a large number of claimants are struggling to make ends meet many months into their claims.

Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has called for key cuts to Universal Credit to be reversed following new DWP evidence showing a large number of claimants are struggling to make ends meet many months into their claims.

Child Poverty Action Group welcomes today’s announcement from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that all children who are adopted will not be taken into account for the purposes of the two-child limit in tax credits and universal credit.