Councillors need to act now on child poverty

Teachers told of seeing malnourished children stealing food from school canteens, of washing the uniforms of pupils whose parents cannot afford to, and of children too disturbed by hunger to concentrate when in the classroom.

This goes beyond an educational issue, and is not going to be solved by a social mobility strategy. It is widespread, profound child poverty, and is rising fast. In 87 electoral wards, more than 50 per cent of children now live in families earning below 60 per cent of the national median. That's more than four times as many wards as in 2015. The use of percentages feels slightly misleading, as though a poor child in an area with a 10 per cent poverty rate won't suffer as acutely as a poor child in an area with a 50 per cent rate. But then so does the overall figure: 4.1 million children now living in relative poverty after housing costs. In four years' time, the figure is predicted to be 5.2 million. It would be easy to grow hopeless or, in the face of such absurdly large numbers, forget that poverty is not a neutral circumstance that suits some people and not others - it is an experience no child should be affected by.