“The corrosive impacts of poverty on families – the exhaustion of having to work multiple jobs, not knowing where the next meal is coming from – hamper both their participation in society and their scope to make a bigger economic contribution. Failure to address poverty can hold back economic growth.”
Prime minister Keir Starmer has said that “too many children are growing up in poverty, held back from getting on in life, and too many families are struggling without the basics”.
Starmer pledged that he would “not stand by and watch that happen, because the cost of doing nothing is too high for children, for families, and for Britain”. He said tackling child poverty was a “moral mission”.
Labour’s child poverty strategy was widely welcomed by anti-poverty charities because of the end to the two-child limit on benefits, a policy which is believed to be trapping hundreds of thousands of children in poverty.
The government has also expanded free school meals to all children in families claiming universal credit, rolled out free breakfast clubs across the country, and invested £500 million in children’s development through the roll out of Best Start Family Hubs.
In its child poverty strategy, the government laid out plans to help families afford baby formula. It also set out support to stop “unlawful” placement of families in bed and breakfasts beyond the six-week limit.
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Families on universal credit will also be able to get help to cover childcare costs for their children.
But with more than four million children set to still be living in poverty by the end of this parliament, the government is facing calls for further action.
Matejic added: “There can be no national renewal if deep poverty remains close to record levels. People want to feel like the country is turning a corner. That means taking action on record levels of deep poverty so everyone can afford the essentials. It means making people feel supported rather than being one redundancy or bout of ill health away from failing to make ends meet.
“And it means supporting individuals so they can afford to be their most productive selves at work, enabling them to find a job that works for them while improving productivity and growing the economy.”
Big Issue is campaigning for Westminster to implement legally-binding targets to tackling child poverty, modelled on those which have been set out by the Scottish government.
John Bird, Big Issue founder, called the projections from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation “bad news for society”.
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“We must insist the government remembers its promise to reduce poverty with radical action,” he said.
Bird has called for “better coordination of government departments” with a centralised Ministry of Poverty Prevention and Cure.
“But convergence of energies is a stranger to government thinking,” Bird added. “As a step towards bolder, longer-term thinking on ending poverty, I am advocating that Westminster does not mark its own homework.
“We must have targets to measure whether they are going in the right direction. But so far, this government seems averse to the idea. Transparency should always win out when it comes to the lives of our poorest children.”
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