Every child deserves the chance to dream, learn and play – without poverty holding them back

Poverty is stealing children’s childhoods. Across the UK, children are worrying about where their next meal will come from – or feeling scared about the stress they see in their parents’ eyes as another red bill drops onto the doormat. But children should be out playing with friends, counting down the sleeps until Christmas or focussing on school. They deserve better.

Last week, I felt quite emotional as the chancellor stood up in parliament and said that she didn’t intend to preside over a “status quo that punishes children for the circumstances of their birth”. The following 10 days since that speech have been genuinely momentous for many children growing up in the shadow of poverty.

Firstly, the government announced it was lifting the unfair two-child limit on benefits. Together with other measures announced in the government’s long-awaited child poverty strategy, this should lift a total of 550,000 children out of poverty by 2029.

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These are children who will now have food on the table. They will be coming home from a day at school to a warm home. The impact of that cannot be overstated.

Following the announcement about the two-child limit being lifted, much of the reaction demonstrates that we have much further to go in explaining to people across the country – all of whom are feeling the pressures of the high cost of living – why this vital safety net for children is needed. I’ve seen lots of voices asking, “why should we pay for people who can’t afford to have children?”.

The fact is that life is complicated, and our circumstances often change in ways that we can’t predict ahead of time. So many families we support in our services up and down the UK are struggling for reasons beyond their control – because of family break-ups, the death of a partner or someone losing their job.

Crucially, we also must not see this as a question of those who work versus those who are in receipt of benefits. The majority of families (59%) affected by the policy are already in work – but we know that work doesn’t always pay enough to keep children out of poverty. Meanwhile, those who would like to enter work or increase their working hours can face huge barriers to doing so, such as the cost and availability of childcare. It’s right that the government is taking action through the new strategy to address this.

At Barnardo’s, we are now working our way through the detail of the child poverty strategy.

We were particularly pleased to see a range of measures to address the impact of a lack of safe and stable housing – including a recognition that children should not be living in temporary accommodation like B&Bs.

We also welcome the introduction of the “deep material poverty” measure, which we feel will better reflect the experience of children whose families can’t afford the essentials most of us take for granted in the UK.

Based on the latest figures, one in three children living in destitution were migrant children, and around half a million children in families in the UK had leave to remain here but were subject to the ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF) condition which means they don’t have access to the safety net other families rely on.

This leaves many children living in desperate conditions – some of whom have only ever known the UK as their home, and others who have experienced horrendous trauma in their young lives.

We welcome the government’s commitment today to making sure these children receive the support they need, regardless of immigration status, and we are also urging them to go further, by exempting all families with children under 18 from the NRPF condition. Without bold and ambitious action, these children will continue to face significant hardship.

Overall, this strategy does represent a landmark moment, but of course as a children’s charity, we will always call on the government to go further and faster for families most in need of help.

Unfortunately, even with the very welcome announcements today, some four million children – or even more – are still set to be living in poverty in 2029. We had called for a plan that reduced child poverty to 28% child in this period – and with just these measures alone, we will struggle to achieve this.

We also believe it’s important to stay focused on the longer-term picture. We would love to see a clear ambition to halve child poverty within 10 years and to eradicate it completely within 20 years. As part of this, with every decision the government takes in the months and years to come, they should consider what will be in the best interests of those four million or more children living in poverty.

It’s also important that the government measures its progress on reducing child poverty, and reports back to the public.

We look forward to working with the government to deliver meaningful change for children and restoring opportunity to young people across the country. Because every child deserves the chance to dream, learn and play without poverty holding them back.

Lynn Perry is chief executive of Barnardo’s.

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