In its Tackling Child Poverty: Developing Our Strategy report, the Cabinet Office highlights that in 2022/23, 800,000 children were living in a household using a food bank within the past 12 months and three million children were living in material deprivation.
The report cites barriers to employment for parents living in disadvantaged households and the cost-of-living crisis as key factors in rising child poverty rates.
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It was published following the announcement of a child poverty taskforce led by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson and Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall.
It states that: “Our focus is on bringing about an enduring reduction in child poverty in this parliament, as part of a 10-year strategy for lasting change, thereby reversing the trend that is seeing forecasts of child poverty continuing to increase.
“We are clear that this is ambitious, and we will work within and outside government, in partnership, in achieving this aim. We need to recognise, as a country, that poverty is a systemic and shared problem, where government does not hold all the solutions, and where business, voluntary, community and social enterprises, as well citizens and wider society are part of the solution.”
Key areas which the strategy will focus on include:
- Increasing incomes
- Reducing essential costs
- Increasing financial resilience
- Better local support, focused especially on children’s early years
It will be strengthened through a series of engagement activities across government as well as with trade unions, academics and the children’s sector and families living in poverty.
In December, experts on children’s health, early years and education and representatives from civil society will be invited to share experience and expertise on ensuring low-income families are able to access quality services to tackle the impacts of poverty, according to the report.
Responding to its publication, Joseph Howes, chair of the End Child Poverty coalition and chief executive of Buttle UK said: "To lift children out of poverty, this strategy must have social security reform at its bedrock. That's why the End Child Poverty coalition is asking for the Chancellor to prove serious intent by using the upcoming Budget and Spending Review to scrap the two-child limit and benefit cap. This should be followed by systematic increases in the adequacy of social security, until no family is held back by the debilitating impacts of poverty."
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce her Budget on 30 October.
