We all share a moral obligation to end child poverty. It destroys childhoods and causes irreparable damage to our society’s future health and productivity. So many of society’s problems flow from this.
There are over 4 million children who are living in poverty right now[1] and, unless we change things there will be more than 5 million by 2022[2]. We cannot accept this.
Growing up in poverty means not being able to afford the basics like food, clothes and rent. It means children are more likely to have a range of health problems[3], to be excluded from school[4], or taken into care[5]. And most tragically, poorer children are more likely to die before their 18th birthday[6].
Our call to government:
- Make work pay for families with better support for childcare costs.
- End the unjust two-child limit on benefits and reform Universal Credit.
- Reverse the cuts and re-invest in children’s services that provide help to the most vulnerable children and young people.
- Financially support young people trapped in poverty to access further and higher education.
Read the full version of our Manifesto for a Better Childhood.
NOTES
[1] Households Below Average Income, Statistics on the number and percentage of people living in low income households for financial years 1994/95 to 2017/18, Tables 4a and 4b. Department for Work and Pensions, 2019.
[2] Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2017–18 to 2021–22, The Institute for Fiscal Studies
[3] Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer 2012, Our Children Deserve Better: Prevention Pays, 2013
[4] Department for Education, Permanent and fixed period exclusions in England 2017 to 2018 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/permanent-and-fixed-period-exclusions-in-england-2017-to-2018
[5] Department for Education, 2018, Children looked after in England (including adoption)
[6] Wolfe, I et al, Why Children Die: Death in Infants, Children and Young People in the UK, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, National Children’s Bureau, British Association for Child and Adolescent Public Health, 2015