By Richard Johnstone | 9 June 2014
The government lacks a credible plan to meet its target to eradicate child poverty by 2020, the social mobility watchdog warned today.
In its examination of the government’s draft child poverty strategy, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission said it estimated that 3.5 million children would remain in absolute poverty by the end of the decade.
The government’s new strategy, published in February, was a missed opportunity, it concluded. Although in included good elements – such as the extension of childcare support for low-income families and greater acknowledgement of the problem of working poverty – not enough action was taken to prevent child poverty rising over the next few years. In the strategy, the government reiterated its commitment to a legal target, set by the last Labour administration, to end child poverty by 2020.
Commission chair Alan Milburn said the fact that ministers remained unable to agree on how to measure poverty, despite holding a review to revise the current definition of households below 60% of the median income, was a farce.
‘The government’s approach falls far short of what is needed to reduce, yet alone end child poverty in our country. Our new research shows that the gap between the objective of making child poverty history and the reality is becoming ever wider.
‘This is not just an issue for the current government. Politicians from all parties say they are committed to the 2020 targets. Willing the ends without the means today merely becomes a broken promise tomorrow.’
According to research undertaken for the commission, the 2020 child poverty targets will be missed by a large margin even if the UK achieves OECD-beating employment rates as called for by Chancellor George Osborne.
Achieving the 2020 targets within the current tax and benefit system would require parental employment rates of close to 100% combined with big increases in the working hours of families in working poverty, the examination concluded.
The commission called for the strategy to be revised to place a greater focus on tackling in-work poverty, including clearer cross-government strategies on low pay and on pay progression.
In addition, the government should task the Office for Budget Responsibility with examining the intergenerational fairness of future spending cuts and their impact on social mobility and child poverty.
