With no change to Plan A in sight, the Coalition is condemning more UK children to poverty and injustice, writes Dick Skellington.
The bishops predicted that if action were not taken immediately a further 200,000 British children could be pushed into poverty. "Children and families are already being hit hard by cuts to support, including those to tax credits, maternity benefits and help with housing costs," they wrote (see this report). This open letter followed two extremely disturbing reports.
First, the End Child Poverty campaign reported that over 20 per cent of children in Britain were living below the poverty level. The findings were based on research carried out the previous year, before austerity measures impacted and before the benefit caps introduced this April.
The report painted a picture of a divided Britain, in which the gap between rich and poor was increasing every day. The situation was especially acute within our urban centres. In one Manchester constituency almost one half of all the children live in poverty. ECP found that 47% of children in Manchester Central lived in households earning less than 60% of median income (see BBC report).
Constituencies with the highest levels of child poverty included Belfast West, Glasgow North East, Birmingham Ladywood, Bethnal Green and Bow, Liverpool, Poplar and Limehouse, Middlesborough, Newcastle Upon Tyne Central, and Blackley and Broughton. In these parliamentary seats between 38 and 47 per cent of children lived below the poverty level in 2012. Among local authorities, now facing increasing levels of financial hardship and cutbacks, Tower Hamlets, Manchester, Middlesborough, Derry, Belfast, and Islington experienced the highest levels of child poverty, where between 4 and 5 out of 10 children lived below the median 60 per cent level.
This map of Britain shows these huge variations in child poverty. Click on a constituency to explore the data, and use the drop down menu to see which party controls that parliamentary seat.
The figures suggest that in some 69 council wards (areas which are much smaller in size and population than parliamentary constituencies) more than half of children are in poverty. The findings coincide with the publication of disturbing child mortality data which show the all-cause mortality rate for children aged between 0 and 14 years has moved from the average to among the worst in Europe (see this report).
Enver Soloman, chairman of the End Child Poverty campaign, a coalition of over 100 leading UK charities, explained the study found "gross levels of inequality" but significant regional differences. For example while the study revealed a 38 per cent poverty level among children living in Manchester, the figure was only 7 per cent in nearby Ribble Valley. In London the figure for Bethnal Green and Bow was 42% but only 6% in Wimbledon.
Mr Soloman urged the Government and local authorities to prioritise low income families in the decisions they make about welfare spending. Alas for these families, the benefit changes planned by the Department of Work and Pensions will not do this, despite continual statements from the Government stating they remain committed 'to eradicating child poverty'.
The Coalition policies are making child poverty worse. A National Children's Bureau (NCB) report highlighted official estimates that more than a quarter of UK children (27%) – or more than three million – lived in poverty in 2012 (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21462601). This compares unfavourably with comparative data from the European Union where the average level of child poverty is 20.5 per cent. The latest figures reveal that Spain has the highest level of child poverty at 27.2 per cent, followed by Italy at 24.7 per cent, Greece at 23 per cent, Portugal at 20.5 per cent and Ireland at 19.7 per cent. At the current rate Britain will soon have higher child poverty levels than bankrupt Spain.
So it came as no surprise that in March, a shocking new survey by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), predicted that over one half of all British children under 18 could be living below the breadline in 2015.
In the year when Britain will be holding its next General Election, (unless events conspire to produce an earlier date) almost 7.1 million of the nation's 13 million young people could be living in homes with incomes lower than the minimum necessary for a decent standard of living, because of welfare cuts, tax rises and wage freezes. The TUC found that only the poorest 10 per cent of households would be better off by 2015 – and then only by 57p a week. A middle-income household would lose up to £1,200 a year, a 6.6 per cent cut in income.
The TUC study reported a 690,000 increase in the number of under 18s living in households below minimum income standards since 2010. A further 460,000 children were estimated to be pushed below that level by cuts to tax credits. The TUC estimate that only 20,000 children would be raised above the minimum income level by the introduction of the new universal credit system scheduled to be introduced this October.
The findings of these recent studies into child poverty are reflected in the huge increase in the reliance of British people on emergency food banks. Tens of thousands of British people are expected to become reliant on food banks in the next two years. A surge is expected after April 1 when the changes to welfare become effective. But policymakers show little sign of understanding the trend. The Department of Work and Pensions played down the explosion in dependency – from 29,000 in 2009-10 to 300,000 in 20132-13 – by citing improved marketing techniques by food bank trusts for the increase. But at least in February the Government announced a research study into trying to understand why people are increasingly relying on food banks. What does seem certain is that fiscal austerity measures are part of the explanation (see this article).
As 13,000 British millionaires face the pleasant prospect of a £100,000 tax break during 2013, the plight of our country's poorer children merits Government action. But if the bishops open letter has no impact, then this post is unlikely to.
On the eve of the introduction of the new measures four of our leading churches condemned them because they targeted the poor and were unjust. The new Archbishop and our churches are set on a collision course with Government, as indeed are most of our leading charities, and I believe a majority of the British people. This is not a reform portfolio enforced by austerity, but one shrouded in the dark forces of a political attack on the weak and vulnerable.
Dick Skellington 5 April 2013
The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.
Cartoon by Catherine Pain