THE surge in child-poverty rates — to a record high of 4.3 million children previously financial 12 months — is “shocking”, the Archbishop of York has said.
Archbishop Cottrell was commenting on annual figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), published within the report Households Below Average Income last Thursday.
Children living in households with lower than 60 per cent of median income (currently estimated to be about £32,500 per 12 months, or £621 per week) are considered to be in poverty. The DWP reports that 69 per cent of kids in poverty are in working families; 46 per cent are in families with three or more children.
Child-poverty rates are highest amongst Black, African, Caribbean, and Black British families (51 per cent), and kids in Asian and British Asian families (47 per cent). Forty-four per cent of kids in poverty are in one-parent families; 34 per cent are in a household wherein one member of the family has a disability.
Of the 4.3 million children in poverty previously financial 12 months, 2.9 million are identified as being in deep poverty, defined as a household income of below 50 per cent of median income, calculated after housing costs.
Archbishop Cottrell posted on X/Twitter: “These are shocking figures. Ending child poverty is an ethical imperative and we must work together to make it a political imperative. Join me in working and praying for change.”
The Children’s Society’s chief executive, Mark Russell, described the figures as “utterly appalling. . . It’s shameful that a wealthy nation like ours can have thousands and thousands of kids going hungry, living in cold homes where even the fundamentals are seen as a luxury.
“Children deserve every opportunity to have fulfilling lives, but these figures represent 4.3 million individual children whose chances are high being hampered. Our own research shows that one in five children ‘all the time’ or ‘often’ worry about money, a burden no child deserves.
“We need the Government to step up, set clear targets to cut back child poverty, and spend money on social security to fulfill them in order that young people have the chance to thrive.”
The two-child limit on Universal Credit and the profit cap — issues that bishops have consistently raised within the House of Lords (News, 1 March) — are drivers of poverty, the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) says.
Its chief executive, Alison Garnham, who can also be vice-chair of the End Child Poverty Coalition, said: “In a General Election 12 months, nothing must be more vital to our political leaders than making things higher for the country’s poorest kids.
“We know that change is feasible, but we’d like to see a commitment from all parties to scrap the two-child limit and increase child advantages. Anything less can be a betrayal of Britain’s children.”
Head teachers have described to CPAG the effect on children’s well-being. “Pupils are coming to highschool hungry,” Tom Prestwich, a primary-school teacher in Lambeth, said. Pupils who were overtired because of inauspicious home conditions, and cold due to inadequate clothing, were at an obstacle right from the beginning of their day.
“We do as much as we will to counteract this,” including holding breakfast clubs, supplying second-hand uniforms, and supporting parents battling for improved housing, he said. “But . . . the gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged families is widening. This is going on at a time when school budgets are ever more stretched and our capability to assist and support families is reduced consequently.”
In a post on X/Twitter last Thursday, the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, said that, during questions within the House of Lords the previous week, “I used to be assured that the speed of kids living in absolute poverty had fallen, but data published by the Government today shows 100,000 more children live in absolute poverty than last 12 months.
“In the sixth largest global economy, this mustn’t be. My prayers are with all those for whom the Easter holidays will likely be a time of hysteria and dread because the associated fee of three meals a day, let alone fun days out, feels inconceivable to fulfill.”
