Prime Minister sets up new taskforce to tackle child poverty

The Prime Minister has appointed the Work & Pensions Secretary and the Education Secretary as the joint leads of a new ministerial taskforce to begin work on the Child Poverty Strategy.

Liz Kendall and Bridget Phillipson will head up the new Child Poverty Unit in the Cabinet Office – bringing together expert officials from across government as well as external experts to report into the taskforce. The Government says the new unit will explore how it can use all the available levers to create an ambitious strategy.

Child poverty has gone up by 700,000 since 2010 with over four million children now growing up in a low-income family. This not only harms children’s lives now it damages their future prospects and holds back our economic potential as a country.

“For too long children have been left behind, and no decisive action has been taken to address the root causes of poverty. This is completely unacceptable - no child should be left hungry, cold or have their future held back,” Keir Starmer said last week announcing the taskforce.

The first meeting is set to take place soon, but it is expected the taskforce will attempt to recognise the wide-ranging causes of child poverty, and consider how Government can use levers related to household income as well as employment, housing, children’s health, childcare and education to improve children’s experiences and chances at life.

Work & Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall vowed to “turn the tide on rising poverty levels”, meeting with organisations last week including Save the Children, Action for Children, Barnardo’s, TUC, End Child Poverty Coalition, Resolution Foundation and UNICEF to invite their views on how they can shape the strategy.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “For too many children, living in poverty leaves them not ready to learn and robbed of opportunity. But child poverty reaches far beyond the school gates and alongside the Work and Pensions Secretary, I am determined to drive the work forward to support families and communities.”

Recent data analysed by Loughborough University for the End Child Poverty Coalition found that across the UK over 30% of children are in poverty – equivalent to nine children in every classroom, with the two-child benefit cap being a major driver for child poverty.

Despite calls from across the children’s sector to scrap the benefit cap, which was introduced by then-Chancellor George Osborne in 2017, there was no mention of it in the King’s Speech setting out the Government’s intentions for this Pariament.

Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, current Chancellor Rachel Reeves refused to commit to the policy, which is expected to cost up to £3bn per year.

“If we’re not able to say where the money is going to come from, we can’t promise to do it,” Reeves said.