Cuts can’t fix child poverty: it’s time for a new approach

The latest Household Below Average Income (HBAI) statistics show that poverty continues to affect millions of children in the UK, with 4.5 million affected by poverty during 2023-2024, an increase of 100,00 on the year before. These figures should shame us all, and must be examined alongside the UK Government’s proposals to take £4.8 billion in social security support from some of the most vulnerable, and indeed poorest, among us. The Government’s own Impact Assessment suggests that 50,000 more children will be pulled into relative poverty as a direct result of these changes. But another way is possible. For the past five years, almost 200 parents and carers living on a low-income from all four nations of the UK have been working alongside researchers at the University of York and Child Poverty Action Group to document everyday life in poverty and to push for change. The project started life as Covid Realities in the pandemic and became Changing Realities in a cost-of-living crisis that has never gone away. In our work together, we have contributed real-time evidence to policymakers, challenged harmful media narratives, and developed co-produced recommendations for change.

People across the UK want to see meaningful and lasting action on child poverty, so that every child has the chance to thrive and to live a full and happy childhood. For this to happen, we need to see concerted action by the UK Government, including investment in social security. Cuts to social security will have the opposite effect: consigning more families to a life of hardship and a constant struggle to get by. It really is very simple. We cannot achieve reductions in child poverty without committing to investing in social security. Our new analysis shows that were the UK Government to follow the Scottish Government’s example and make an equivalent per-child investment in social security, the rate of child poverty could drop by 700,000 overnight. Talk of tough choices and fiscal responsibility puts balancing the books ahead of supporting children, who are this nation’s future.

2025 will see the publication of a UK Child Poverty Strategy, the first in many years. This must include significant improvements to what little remains of our social security safety net. The two-child limit and the benefit cap have to go; and we need sustained, long-term action to restore adequacy to our social security system. The happiness, wellbeing and future of our nation’s children depends on it. There really is no other way.