WHAT is this Labour Government for? The party’s dire results in the local elections have shown that dancing to Nigel Farage’s tune is an error, not least because it does not work. Rather, this government needs to forge its own authentic course. This will be brought into sharp focus in the coming weeks as debate flares up over a scandal frequently ignored in Westminster: rising child poverty.
Ministers are preparing a “strategy”. In March, 35 faith leaders, including the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams, signed a letter to the Education Secretary, Bridget Philipson, and the Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, calling for a “bold and ambitious” approach (News, 28 March). It was organised by the multidenominational Joint Public Issues Team (JPIT), which pointed out that 4.3 million children in the UK — three in ten — are living in poverty.
This came after the Prime Minister promised last year that he would introduce a plan to raise children out of poverty by the “millions”. The last Labour administration lifted more than half a million children out of poverty in its first five years.
Paul Morrison, of the JPIT, says: “The story of the last 15 years has been slow increase in the numbers experiencing poverty, but what has shocked churches is the increasing depth. Poverty used to mean being left behind by your peers over the long term, as well as shame and unpleasant choices in the present. Today, you can add to that the imminent threat of hunger, insecure housing, and basic health needs going unattended.”
People from ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected: 49 per cent of black children live below the poverty line, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) reports.
TODAY, the UK’s wealthiest ten per cent, who should bear the tax burden in a fair society, enjoy buying power similar to those in other European nations. The poorest ten per cent are 23 per cent poorer than the European average.
Lord Williams warns the Government against “anxious short-termism”. He says: “There are solutions that will work without bankrupting us. But ignoring the issue will indeed bankrupt us at a much more fundamental level.”
The argument within Labour is likely to intensify. Senior party figures, including the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, have made plain their opposition to the two-child benefit cap that was introduced by the Conservatives in 2017 and has been maintained by Sir Keir Starmer.
Again, the JRF has the facts. Its report UK Poverty 2025 shows that families with three or more children face a higher rate of poverty: 45 per cent of children in families with three or more children were in poverty in 2022-23, compared with 22 per cent of children in families with one or two children.
This month, a student, Sophie, a youth ambassador for the End Child Poverty Coalition, testified at a Citizens Advice webinar to the hardship of being one of four children in a single-parent, low-income household.
“Hunger is impossible,” she says. “Being a young person in school is already challenging, with deadlines, homework, socialising, and planning for your future. Imagine this, but you’re anxious about your mam skipping meals. You are hungry, as you skip breakfast every day to save food for your siblings. You didn’t sleep well, as there are three of you sharing a bedroom. Therefore, concentrating in lessons, doing your homework, or applying to higher education inevitably becomes both impossible and not important.”
The removal of the cap would result in 500,000 fewer children in poverty by 2030, speakers at a separate Resolution Foundation discussion, in February, said.
Mr Brown now talks about “austerity’s children”: those caught in a poverty that he thought he would never see again after witnessing it in 1960s Fife. In response, he has launched the “multibank”: a foodbank, clothes bank, toiletries bank, bedding bank, baby bank, hygiene bank, and furniture bank, all rolled into one. They are stocked by companies’ surplus goods, which are passed on to local charities, which distribute them to the families who need them most. Multibanks have been launched in Fife, Wigan, London, and Middlesbrough.
CHARITIES alone, however, cannot fill the gap. As early as 2022, Mr Brown and Lord Williams warned of a “torn safety net” among charities, foodbanks, and even churches, in a foreword to a report published by the think tank Theos.
A fortnight ago, Hannah Rich outlined here the grave effects of the overseas aid cuts shamefully implemented by this Labour Government, in part to appease supporters of Mr Farage, to whose tune Westminster increasingly dances (Comment, 2 May). After the local elections, it is tempting to ask: How did that work out?
As with aid, only government can find the money needed to tackle the child-poverty scandal. This should be done through taxing the richest as well as dropping the cap. If this Labour Government is against doing so, what, exactly, is it for?
James Macintyre is a journalist who has co-written a biography of Ed Miliband, and is working on a book about Gordon Brown.
