I’m a single dad asking Keir Starmer and his government to do more to tackle child poverty

A record 4.5 million children currently live in poverty in the UK today. It’s an extraordinary figure, one almost too vast to properly comprehend.

Opportunities for those 4.5 million children and their families to be heard directly are limited, but thankfully groups like Changing Realities – a participatory online project involving nearly 200 carers and parents living on a low income across the UK – do provide a platform for parents like myself to speak out.

This week the Child Poverty Action Group has invited me to do just that by attending the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool and providing my insight, a first hand experience of raising children on universal credit.

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Yet the party of government arrives on Merseyside in a bad state. Despite its giant majority in the House of Commons, Labour appears in something of a perma-crisis consisting of U-turns, resignations and dire poll ratings.

The conference falls during both a formal contest to decide the next deputy leader and a seemingly open debate about whether Andy Burnham or Keir Starmer should be the prime minister. Amid this noise, if the government wants to get back on track, it should focus its mind on the 4.5 million children in poverty.

Both deputy leader candidates appear to have previously endorsed the abolition of the two-child limit on benefits. This move would lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty – the single quickest way to target investment into the poorest families.

We can also welcome the recent announcements of bringing back Sure Start (albeit under an odd ‘Best Start’ re-branding) and extending free school meals to all children whose parents are on universal credit. Yet with a Child Poverty Strategy and a budget to come later in autumn, this conference should be an ideal moment to hear more about what the Labour government plan to do to support struggling families.

They shouldn’t be short of ideas. Changing Realities, Child Poverty Action Group, the IPPR and Resolution Foundation along with many others have put forward plenty of ways to reduce financial stress for households on low-incomes.

Further measures in education could include extending free childcare from 85% reimbursement to 100%. It might not seem much but would relieve families like mine of hundreds of pounds a year – or offering free after-school clubs to match the new breakfast clubs.

They could extend the free fruit scheme from Key Stage 1 to all through the primary years or look to Wales where the education maintenance allowance for 16 to 18 year olds was never abolished. Likewise, Scotland offers a steer with its free buses and heavily subsidised rail for under 22s, while the postcode lottery of social tariffs in essential services like water, energy and telecoms should be fixed by nationally agreed schemes.

Housing is probably the number one cause of child poverty and again, expanding the number of social homes being built is obviously welcome but with 1.8 million households in the private rented sector receiving housing benefit or housing element of universal credit, the programme should be bigger and faster.

Absolute priority must be given to providing secure homes for the 164,000 children in temporary accommodation and immediate support for many more should come in the form of raising local housing allowance to better reflect real local renting costs. For me, local housing allowance is £892.54 for a two-bed in Newbury, but try finding a two-bed for less than £1,200 a month.

The most depressing truth about child poverty isn’t how many children are in it, it’s how easy it is for the government to lift so many out. It’s a question of priorities. The government is starting to make the right sounds, but now we need to hear concrete plans for action via the budget, the Child Poverty Strategy and, first of all, this conference.

Jonny Roberts is a single parent with two children, currently working part-time. He takes part in Changing Realities, a collaboration of almost 200 parents on a low income working with researchers at the University of Glasgow to push for change. He is speaking at a Child Poverty Action Group event at the Labour Party Conference.

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