Tim challenges Government on failure to meet Child Poverty Targets
Yesterday in a Parliamentary debate, East Worthing and Shoreham MP Tim Loughton accused the Government of failing to meet their targets on child poverty. The debate, in Westminster Hall, was sponsored by the backbench MP Fiona Mactaggart and Tim, in his capacity as Shadow Minister for Children, was leading for the Conservatives from the front bench.
The Government promised to reduce by a quarter the number of children in poverty by 2005, but have failed to do so; using after housing costs poverty figures, they missed the target by a massive 300,000 children. Last year, the number of children living in poverty actually rose. Again, using the housing cost figures, it rose by 200,000 children to 3.8 million. Indeed, in the last decade the number of children in poverty has barely changed at all.
The number of people living in severe poverty has actually increased by 600,000 -- from 2.5 million, in 1996-97, to 3.1 million, in 2004-05. According to the London School of Economics, social mobility in the UK is lower than in Canada, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Although the gap in opportunities between the rich and poor is similar in Britain and the US, in the US it is at least static, while in Britain it is getting wider.
The Government appear to be backtracking from their target to reduce child poverty by half by 2010. The Treasury Select Committee's report into the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review stated their concern that "that the Government may have drawn back from a whole-hearted commitment to meeting this target."
Tim commented:
"More than 2.2 million British children -- one in five -- now live in households dependent on state benefits. In some inner-city areas, almost half the children are growing up in entirely benefit-funded homes.
"Poverty has terrible affects on these children's life outcome, by the age of three, being in poverty makes a difference equivalent to nine months' development in school readiness. Children living in poverty lag two years behind their peers by the age of 14 and if they do badly at primary school are less likely to improve at secondary school. This is why early intervention to combat child poverty is crucial and why it is simply not good enough for the Government to have given up on their child poverty targets.
"Quite simply, child poverty does not seem to be a priority for this Government. It however will be a priority for the next Conservative Government. We endorse and share the widely held aspiration that child poverty in Britain should be eliminated by 2020 and have innovative welfare and tax credit policies that help achieve this."
Note to Editor:
1) The full transcript of the debate is available - please click here
,
