A pledge to lift all children out of poverty by 2020 faces headwinds in public perceptions, Winnie Agbonlahor finds out more
In 1999, PM Tony Blair committed the country to eliminating child poverty within 20 years. Under him, the Child Poverty Bill was introduced to Parliament with the aim of enshrining this target in law, and the Child Poverty Unit was set up to oversee its implementation. The bill became law in 2010 and the new coalition government signed up to the 2020 target, which has cross-party support. The government has since produced a child poverty strategy, which the Child Poverty Unit – an interdepartmental unit shared by the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Treasury – is working to deliver.
However, despite spending millions of pounds on a variety of programmes designed to support disadvantaged kids, the government is still facing some fundamental challenges on its journey towards eliminating child poverty. These challenges were at the heart of a debate at Civil Service Live in London attended by Frank Davies, head of external relations at the Child Poverty Unit, and Chris Goulden, head of poverty policy and research at social research charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).
The problems start with the definition of what constitutes poverty and how it should be measured, said Davies. Should a household be classed as poor if it does not have access to the internet – something required in today’s world to “contribute to, take part in and get the most out of our society”? This, he said, is a “material resources definition”, rather than one of relative income levels – the more common measure.
JRF defines poverty as living in a condition where resources are insufficient to meet minimum needs: it considers things like food, clothing and a home, as well as “opportunities that allow for a level of meaningful participation in society”. Every year the charity publishes the income needed to meet these needs: the ‘Minimum Income Standard’ is this year calculated at £200 per week for a single working-age adult, £285 for a lone parent with one child, £470 for a couple with two children and £240 for a pensioner couple. Goulden told the audience that “it would be really great if we heard politicians talking a bit more about the definitions and conceptualisations of poverty”.
If a child is poor, this is usually because its parents or carers live in poverty, one member of the audience said. Is it therefore sensible to seek to tackle child poverty as a separate issue? Not in the long run, replied Goulden. “This idea that you can just pick off child poverty and have an effective strategy that’s long-lasting is not feasible,” he said. “We’d like to see a poverty unit, not a child poverty unit.”
Both panellists agreed that public perception is important in battling this problem, and noted that society has become increasingly unsympathetic towards poor people. Even ten years ago, child poverty attracted more interest than adult poverty, Goulden said: “The Child Poverty Unit exists because Tony Blair felt that he could ‘sell’ child poverty, but not poverty overall.” And Davies added that “children have a bit more traction in these debates” than adults.
Nowadays, there’s still less public support for government efforts to tackle poverty – but doing so is “good morally for all of us as a society; as well as better for the economy, because we’d have healthier, better-skilled people coming into the workforce,” Davies said. “That’s why a lot of our work must focus on adults.”
At a time when relative income poverty (meaning that a household has less than 60% of the median income) and absolute poverty (a measure of material deprivation, and one that does not change over time) are set to rise by 2020, according to Goulden, taking action is absolutely crucial. While Universal Credit “by itself, is positive”, he said, “all the other cuts – to tax and benefits in particular – more than undermine the good work of Universal Credit.”