A new benefit for children living in lower income families in Scotland, available from December 2020.
07 April 2020
More than sixty major family and children’s charities, advice organisations, academics, unions and faith leaders have written to the Chancellor calling for a £10 per child weekly uplift in child benefit to help families through the COVID-19 crisis.
26 March 2020
As the Government puts in place welcome emergency measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic, child poverty continues its upward trend without an effective strategy to tackle it.
26 March 2020
The increase to the universal credit (UC) standard allowance and the working tax credit basic element by £20 per week as part of the government’s response to the Coronavirus is welcome. According to the Resolution Foundation[1] “Having recently fallen to their lowest real-terms value since the early 1990s, the main adult rate of unemployment benefits is now at its highest ever level, as the chart below shows. Relative to average earnings, it is at its highest level since 1998-99
17 March 2020
CPAG welcomes steps that have been taken so far to support low-income people, but much more needs to be done to support families in this time of national crisis.
16 March 2020
Child Poverty Action Group is urging the Government to increase payments for children if schools close because of Coronavirus, to protect children in low-income families facing extra financial pressure and the loss of free school meals. Ideally the payments could be made through a £10 per week uplift in child benefit for the duration of the pandemic.
11 March 2020
Commenting on today’s Budget, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, Alison Garnham said: "New Corona virus emergency measures on Statutory Sickness Pay, employment support allowance and universal credit are welcome but low-income families need support in health and in sickness. When it comes to the nation’s longer-term priorities, action on poverty must trump potholes and pubs. We need to properly re-invest in our social infrastructure."
06 March 2020
CPAG responded to the Government's consultation before the 2020 Budget.
10 February 2020
Our legal team has had a busy start to the new year. Last week we learned we had been successful in our High Court case challenging the fact that the higher rate of bereavement support payment for families with children is currently only paid if a spouse or civil partner dies, and not when the couple were not married or in a civil partnership. This follows a similar challenge to the previous widowed parent’s allowance – the Supreme Court found in favour of a mother and her four children in that case, but, although the law is not compatible with human rights law, the government has still not resolved the issue.
17 January 2020
Families are inevitably at greater risk of poverty than other households because there are more people to maintain on a given income. Our societies have developed social policies to help families with children in the tasks of child rearing. This briefing explores child poverty and child benefit policy in different European countries, to see whether we can learn lessons from the social policies of others.
