MOVES to alleviate child poverty – such as scrapping the two-child benefits cap – would likely save lives and reduce regional inequality, according to a new study.
Researchers from the Universities of Glasgow, Liverpool, and Newcastle estimated, using local authority-level data, the effect different reductions in child poverty might have over the next decade.
The completed study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, found that cutting child poverty levels by a third could save lives, prevent some children from going into care, and relieve pressure on local authorities and health services.
It said that scenarios of a 15%, 25% and 35% reduction in poverty were considered “to be realistic in light of the 26% fall in prevalence previously observed in the UK between 1997 and 2010” under previous Labour governments.
All reduction scenarios would result in “substantial improvements to child health” between now and 2033, researchers said.
An “ambitious but realistic reduction” of 35% on 2023 levels “would be expected to result in avoiding a total of 293 infant deaths, 4,696 children entering care, 458 childhood admissions with nutritional anaemias and 32,650 childhood emergency admissions”, the researchers estimated.
They said: “These reductions would likely translate into significant savings for, and relieve pressure on, local authorities (in relation to children looked after) and health services.
“Benefits are likely to be greatest in the most disadvantaged areas, helping efforts to ‘level up’. Other health impacts that we have not been able to quantify are also likely.”
The researchers concluded that “if policy-makers were to set and achieve child poverty targets for England – for example, through suggested measures such as removing the two-child limit and benefit cap – this would likely improve child health, particularly among the most socioeconomically disadvantaged and ‘level up’ regional inequalities”.
The news comes as the Labour-run UK Government continues to impose the benefits cap first brought in by the Conservatives, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer resisting calls from opposition and within his own party to scrap it.
The benefit cap, which prevents people from claiming for third or subsequent children unless they meet certain conditions – such as being able to prove the child is a product of rape – is seen by experts as one of the key drivers of child poverty in the UK.
The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) estimated that removing the cap would cost £1.7 billion in the current financial year, but would be the most cost-effective way to instantly lift 700,000 children out of extreme poverty.
The latest official UK figures, published earlier this year, showed an estimated 4.33 million children in households in relative low income after housing costs in the year to March 2023 – a record high.
This latest research estimated that northern regions of England “exhibited the greatest relative and absolute benefit” from child poverty reductions.
