The increase in the level of child poverty in north-east England in the year 2020/21, to 38%, is an ominous sign of the shape of things to come. What such statistics mean in human terms is that millions of people are getting into debt; making choices between heating and eating; and finding essentials including sanitary items – let alone luxuries – have moved out of reach. As the school holidays approach, the outlook for children whose families can’t afford to go on holidays or outings, and who rely during term time on free school meals, is bleak.
Because of the £20 weekly uplift in universal credit payments, introduced to help people manage through the pandemic, the incomes of the poorest 20% of households in the UK rose by 4% overall during this period. Poverty had been predicted to rise following the withdrawal of the increase. But for reasons including the large number of people in the north-east who have yet to transition to universal credit from the previous system, the temporary relief provided by the Covid measures passed the region by. Researchers for the End Child Poverty coalition of charities, whose calculations refer to incomes after housing costs, also registered increases in child poverty in Wales and parts of the south-east, including Luton. In total, 3.6 million UK children are defined as being in poverty, with the north-east overtaking London to have the highest rate.
When combined with data including annual supermarket inflation, which hit 8.3% last month, and soaring energy prices, this latest report is even more sobering. So are the experiences described by those who are worst affected, who are disproportionately lone parents, disproportionately black and Asian, and disproportionately living in households that include a person who is disabled. Because of the crisis surrounding energy supply and costs, campaigners and politicians have pointed to October – when the energy price cap is predicted to rise dramatically – as a cliff-edge to watch out for. What these findings show is how very grave the cost of living crisis already is.
The supermarket chain Asda announced last week that its cafes would offer meals for £1 to under-16s during the school holidays. Many councils and food banks will also support families while schools are closed. But such short-term fixes are obviously not adequate to the task, which is to stop millions of children from being harmed, both in the present and in the future, because they don’t have the opportunities and resources that everyone needs in order to reach their potential.
Last week the Conservative peer Lady Stroud launched a commission aimed at formulating a cross-party poverty strategy, and said the issue would define the next general election. On current showing, her party’s leadership election seems more likely to be defined by its absence, as candidates make wild promises of tax cuts that are more like threats to the millions of people whose prospects depend not only on benefit levels but also on public investment in education, health and transport. Levelling up was the new vocabulary of Boris Johnson’s government for the old challenge of disadvantage. It looks as though his successor may be as unfit as he was to meet it.
