FAITH leaders are calling on the Government to be “daring and impressive” in its strategy to scale back poverty amongst children, which affects nearly one-third of all children in Britain.
The lead bishop for poverty, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, who’s the Bishop of Leicester, is among the many 35 signatories from the six major faith traditions of an open letter to the co-chairs of the ministerial Child Poverty Taskforce, the creation of which was announced after the King’s Speech last July, just days after the overall election (News, 19 July 2024).
The former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams and the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Most Revd Mark Strange, have also signed the letter to the co-chairs of the taskforce, the Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, and the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson.
Some 4.3 million children, or 3 in 10 of kids within the UK, were living in poverty in 2022/23, in response to government figures. The Government acknowledges that reducing child poverty will improve children’s probabilities of future success and result in economic growth.
The letter, issued on Sunday, nevertheless, states that, without recent interventions, an extra 400,000 children could fall into poverty over the subsequent decade, citing a report published on Wednesday by the Methodist-linked charity Action for Children.
The letter also says that “thousands and thousands are fed and supported because communities have risen to the challenge of ever-increasing poverty and hardship”, including through running “debt centres, food banks, food pantries and warm hubs”.
The faith leaders write that they “recognise that there are various pressures on public spending”, but add: “In setting out your Child Poverty Strategy, we ask you to display that you just match the commitment and ambition of our communities.”
Bishop Snow said: “The scourge of poverty we see in our country today has profound implications on [children’s] health, wellbeing and life possibilities. Churches will proceed to play their part in supporting children and their families experiencing hardship . . . an ambitious child poverty strategy would make a big difference within the communities we live in and amongst.”
The President of the Methodist Conference, the Revd Helen Cameron, said: “We realize it is feasible to significantly reduce child poverty, and a social-security system that permits families to afford the essentials will probably be a central pillar.”
The Action for Children report, Paying the Price, suggests changes that it says could lift 1.2 million children out of poverty by 2029. These include “motion to reform and put money into a more practical social-security system, and steps to spice up social housing and improve opportunities for income from employment”. The report also says that ending the two-child limit and profit cap is “the one most cost-effective policy option the federal government could take towards ending poverty”, although “it won’t be enough by itself”.
A press release accompanying the letter includes the story of Louise (24) from London, a care-leaver and the mother of a four-year-old. “I need the most effective for my daughter and to provide her opportunities I didn’t have,” she is quoted as saying. “Even though I worked as much as I could, before she went to highschool, I used to be in my overdraft every month and counting on Universal Credit simply to pay for childcare so I could keep my job. . . There is more support needed . . . to assist people stay in work, take care of their children and thrive.”
In 1999, the then Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged to finish child poverty in a generation. His Labour government introduced a series of targeted measures and advantages increases that drove down child poverty to 18 per cent in 2010-11. But, after a series of austerity cuts introduced in response to the worldwide financial crisis in 2016, the Conservative Government removed poverty targets that had been established in law by Labour in 2010.
Last May, Sir Keir Starmer said that, “in a perfect world”, he would scrap the cap, but “we haven’t got the resources to do it in the mean time.” Separately, he said that the last Labour government “took thousands and thousands of kids out of poverty and we are going to achieve this again”.
