‘Next generation’ budget fails to deliver for children in poverty
For immediate release: Wednesday 16 March 2016
In response to today’s Budget, Sam Royston, Chair of End Child Poverty said:
“The End Child Poverty Coalition was looking to see measures in the budget to tackle child poverty, given the Prime Minister’s promise of an ‘all-out assault on poverty’ and that this would be a ‘turn-around decade’. The Chancellor claims that child poverty is down, but fails to mention that independent projections show child poverty is actually on the rise in the UK, with IFS projections of more than a million more children living in poverty by 2020-21.
Yet, this ‘next generation’ budget fails to introduce measures to redress projected rises in child poverty and the central issue of low family income. The increase in tax free allowances will do little to help families on low incomes, and family finances are set to be hit further by the four year benefit freeze and the forthcoming introduction of cuts to support for working families under Universal Credit.”
ENDS.
NOTES
In David Cameron’s 2015 conference speech, as well as in a further speech at Family Action in January 2016, the Prime Minister promised an ‘all-out assault on poverty’.
The IFS report ‘Living Standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2015-16 to 2020-21’ by James Browne and Andrew Hood, finds that planned cuts to benefits and tax credits will mean no growth in the incomes of poorer households on average over the next five years. Child poverty rates are expected to rise between 2015-16 and 2020-21: by 3 percentage points for absolute poverty and 8 percentage points for relative poverty. Families on low-incomes with three or more children will be hit especially hard by benefit cuts. www.ifs.org.uk/publications/8171
Increases in personal tax allowances is not a progressive policy as tax cuts are delivered to everyone and those on middle to high incomes benefit the most from personal allowance increases. Those on the lowest earnings do not benefit at all, as they aren’t earning enough to pay tax.
The Campaign to End Child Poverty (www.endchildpoverty.org.uk) is made up of more than 100 organisations from civic society including children’s charities, child welfare organisations, social justice groups, faith groups, trade unions and others, united in our vision of a UK free of child poverty. These include Child Poverty Action Group, The Children’s Society, Family Action, Barnardo’s, 4Children, Contact a Family, Gingerbread, Oxfam, Action for Children, TUC, Family and Childcare Trust, Save the Children, and the National Children’s Bureau. End Child Poverty campaigns to achieve our vision by: Ensuring the voices of families facing economic disadvantage are heard; Increasing understanding of the causes and impacts of child poverty and mobilising public support and action; Promoting to politicians and government the case for ending child poverty by 2020, the actions that will achieve it and holding them to account on the requirements of the Child Poverty Act.
You can get in touch with the coalition by emailing kate@endchildpoverty.org.uk or on 07918 567577.
