Tackling child poverty is a priority for the Labour government and ‘it is a personal priority for me ‘.
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liz Kendall has said that a Labour government will reduce child poverty by the end of the current Parliament, when asked at an event at Labour Party conference about the government’s commitment to tackling child poverty.
Speaking at the Child Poverty Action Group’s {CPAG) fringe event at Labour conference in Liverpool, alongside Alison Graham, chief executive of CPAG, and representatives from the CPAG youth panel, Parent Action and Sam Freedman, a senior fellow at Institute for Government, Kendall was asked if Labour could guarantee there will be fewer children growing up in poverty by 2029, the likely end of Labour’s first term.
Kendall replied: “Yes that’s what we intend to do and we won’t fail”.
She also said that tackling child poverty is a priority for the Labour government and ‘it is a personal priority for me ‘.
Her comments came as panellists urged the Labour government to uprate benefits and abolish the two child benefit cap, which CPAG argues would lift 300,000 children out of poverty and mean 700,000 children are in less deep poverty.
Graham told the audience: “Every day the two-child cap stays in place, an additional 109 children are dragged into poverty.”
She also said that people don’t want to hear ‘tackling child poverty is a complex problem’ and added: ‘We need money’, explaining that child poverty could be eradicated through the right policy choices.
Graham also highlighted how the value of benefits had been reduced due to inflation, adding: “Benefits have only risen in only five of the last 14 years.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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