There are a record 4.5 million children living in poverty living in the UK today. CPAG forecasts that without further action this number will rise to 4.7 million by the end of this parliament. The government must invest in social security to reduce child poverty, boost living standards overnight and improve wider economic, health and educational outcomes.
The shocking failure to properly plan or to assess the impact of decisions made during the pandemic on children has left a generation paying a heavy price.
More and more families are being capped because the cap threshold has been largely frozen since 2016 while the cost of living has risen sharply and rents in particular have skyrocketed.
A lone parent family with three children can now expect to be capped across 95 per cent of England and Wales, compared to 60 per cent just two years ago in 2023. The cap leaves all affected families with very little to live on once housing costs are accounted for. In inner London, a lone parent family with three children can be left with just £3 a week to live on after paying rent. In Brighton, a similar family would be left with just £89 a week to live on after rent.
Recent public narratives around asylum-seeking have focused on mostly men arriving by small boats and staying in Home Office commissioned hotels. However, what is the experience of the children and families seeking asylum in the UK? What support do they really get? And to what extent does this support meet children’s educational needs?
80 young people took part in the Cost of the School Day young people's summit on 30th September, and met with Scotland’s First Minister to ask what more his government intends to do to ensure that there are no financial barriers to education for children living in poverty.
As current government reportedly considers scrapping two-child limit, the Covid inquiry hears how support before, during and after the pandemic failed children
The Prime Minister’s confirmation that government is on a journey to end child poverty is welcome and this can only mean that the Budget scraps the two-child limit and benefit cap. Children and families have waited patiently and now it’s time for government to deliver.
The Children’s Rights Organisations (CROs) comprising of five leading children’s rights groups are calling on the Covid-19 Inquiry to deliver justice, strengthen safeguards, and put children first - after systemic failures during the pandemic caused devastating harm to countless young people.
80 young people from across Scotland are meeting with the First Minister for Scotland at the Cost of the School Day Young People’s Summit to set out how they think the Scottish Government should tackle poverty in schools in the coming years.
The Secretary of State’s determination to lift children out of poverty is clear for all to see. The Prime Minister must now unequivocally back the full abolition of the two-child limit in his conference speech tomorrow.
Abolishing the two-child limit is, by far, the most cost-effective way of reducing child poverty, and if done this year will transform the lives of millions of children and families by the end of this parliament.
