Instead of welfare cuts, charities are calling for a more compassionate approach, which would see benefits increased so that people can afford the essentials.
Sumi Rabindrakumar, head of policy and research at Trussell, said: “We urge the government to bring in a protected minimum floor in universal credit, setting a level below which payments cannot fall in the upcoming budget.
“This early, positive step would pave the way for future reforms tackling poverty, and show the government is serious about delivering real change.”
Trussell’s latest research found that almost a quarter of children under four in the UK face hunger and hardship. It has called on the government to “clearly set out its broader vision and the actions it will take to deliver on its manifesto commitment to end the need for emergency food altogether”.
“The millions of people facing hunger and hardship cannot wait for the UK government to act. It is not just people who are paying the price of hunger and hardship, but our public services and economy too,” Rabindrakumar added.
There are indications that the government recognises the struggle low-income families are facing to afford their essentials. Its strategy pledges to reduce essential costs and work with businesses to understand and tackle the key cost drivers for low-income families, such as housing, energy and food.
It also wants to increase “financial resilience” to find solutions to problem debt and enable families to build savings, and the fourth is better local support with a specific focus on early years.
Katie Schmuecker, principal policy adviser at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, called the strategy an “ambitious approach” which “signals a big step in the right direction”.
“We welcome the government’s acknowledgement of the real scale of hardship across the UK, which we have uncovered in our own research,” Schmuecker said.
“It’s also clear that the government recognises tackling child poverty will require work on multiple fronts including social security, work, care, housing and other essential costs, as the causes of poverty are intertwined.
However, she added: “Having a long-term strategy to solve poverty is critical, but so too is urgent action to help people who face another winter struggling to warm their homes and feed their families.
“Next week’s budget is the moment where the government can show they understand the urgency of this challenge and have the compassion to act quickly. Without this, the taskforce’s job only gets harder.”
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that 900,000 people are only £10 a week away from poverty, including 200,000 children. This is on top of the four million children who are already living in poverty in the UK.
Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), said: “We have been calling for an ambitious, comprehensive, government-wide strategy to end child poverty for many years and so we are delighted to see the publication of this strategy document today.
“We hope to see progress made against stretching targets and will continue to press for the policies and actions needed to bring about real change for children, including early removal of the two-child limit.”
The two-child limit sees families receive no extra universal credit for their third child or subsequent children born after April 2017, equating to a loss of more than £3,000 each year. It is estimated that as many as 490,000 children could be lifted out of poverty if the government scrapped the cap.
Becca Lyon, head of child poverty for Save the Children UK, said she is “pleased to be working with the UK government to support their child poverty taskforce so they can hear directly from children and their families”.
“Throughout this engagement with ministers, we want to ensure that children in the UK receive the support they desperately need and deserve,” she said. “One way of doing this is to immediately scrap the two-child limit to benefits and we will continue to call for this throughout this process.”
The group Single Parent Rights said it was “really concerning” that single parents were not outlined as a key group in the child poverty strategy document, having recently written to the child poverty taskforce to warn the government to “stop ignoring” their plight.
Nearly half (44%) of children with single parents are living in poverty, compared with a quarter (26%) of children in couple households, according to government figures.
Ruth Talbot, founder of Single Parent Rights said, “Together with nine other single parent groups we wrote to the child poverty taskforce earlier this month urging them to engage with single parents as part of the child poverty strategy process.
“It was therefore disappointing to learn that the paper the task force published yesterday on how the strategy will be developed failed to mention single parents. Forty-four percent of single parent families live in poverty.
“Without engaging these families in the strategy process their specific needs won’t be addressed. Alongside other single parent groups, we are urging the taskforce to commit to engaging with single parent families and make sure they are represented on the parent panel that is being set up.”
Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. Big Issue exists to give homeless and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy of the magazine or get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Big Issue is demanding an end to extreme poverty. Will you ask your MP to join us?
