Labour has opened the door to ending child poverty, now they must walk through it
The announcement of the much-delayed child poverty strategy is welcome but four million children will still remain in poverty when it ends in 2029
Labour’s groundbreaking plan to lift half a million children out of poverty offers a rare ray of hope amid some of the bleakest social conditions in decades. After years of foot-dragging, the decision to scrap the cruel and arbitrary two-child benefit cap – something we at The Lead have long advocated for – marks a real turning point.
It will have an immediate, measurable impact on more than 550,000 children, pulling families back from the brink and restoring some compassion to an increasingly hostile welfare system.
The wider strategy contains other welcome moves: upfront childcare support for parents on universal credit, £8m to end the use of B&Bs for homeless families, reforms to bring down the cost of baby formula.
The ambition is clear, and the policies may prove invaluable for thousands of parents who have been struggling for far too long. After a decade marked by soaring need and shrinking support, it is a relief to see a government willing to be honest about the realities of child poverty, and acknowledge that these circumstances are a political choice, not an inevitability.
But Labour must not treat this moment as a job done. Despite the tangible positives, the government risks missing an historic opportunity. Charities have already voiced concern at the lack of measurable targets, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies warning of “considerable uncertainty over how large a reduction in measured poverty these policies will ultimately deliver.”
Those warnings should not go unheeded. And they are echoed by those on the frontline too, as Jamie Lopez recently reported in The Southport Lead, part of our commitment to telling stories across the North of England, about the reaction from one charity to the two-child benefit cap being scrapped.
Even if everything in this strategy works as it should – if delivery is smooth, and funding is secure – close to four million children are still set to be living in poverty in 2029. This is a shameful tragedy and a national scandal, that we cannot afford to get lost in the noise of Labour patting themselves on the back.
The government now needs to put real weight behind its manifesto promise to reduce child poverty. Katie Schmuecker of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation [JRF] has called the removal of the two-child limit “the single most effective policy decision” ministers could have made. Now comes the rest.
The JRF’s next ask is clear: introduce a protected minimum floor to Universal Credit, below which no family can be pushed. More than 240,000 children would benefit next year alone, with families gaining an average of £75 a week – a lifeline for thousands.
Labour has opened the door. Now it must walk through it. The lives of the country’s most vulnerable children depend on the government’s willingness to be bold, stay ambitious and keep going. ■
About the author: Natalie Morris is our Senior Editor here at The Lead. Elsewhere, she is a freelance writer, journalist and host covering social justice, inequality, health and community, writing in the Guardian, the Independent, Metro, Grazia, Stylist, Glamour, Cosmopolitan and more. She’s the author of Mixed/Other and co-author of Leigh-Anne Pinnock’s memoir about race in the pop industry – Believe.
More from The Lead on End Child Poverty
Our Westminster Editor Zoë Grünewald considered the impact of scrapping the two-child benefit cap alongside the rest of the Budget and she also launched our campaign to End Child Poverty in the Autumn
We took a deep dive into the numbers behind child poverty, including the stark North-South divide which Kevin Gopal explored for The Lead North
There is deep racial inequality when it comes to child poverty, as we outlined
For those who are paid subscribers to The Lead and support our independent journalism, our latest edition of The Lead in Conversation drilled into the issue in our latest podcast episode. Subscribe to have a listen.
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How desperate they are getting,to little too late,there's no stopping the SNP,You have a so called King worth Billions his mother was a tax dodger,we have people sleeping rough on our streets, while imigrents are put up in posh hotels,at the taxpayers expense,we Scots need to get ourselves out of this so called union pronto.