Daily roundup 1 June: 'Oliver Twist' crime, child benefits, and child poverty

Children are being enlisted to take part in shoplifting, pickpocketing and begging on Britain’s streets in "Oliver Twist scenarios", the anti-slavery commissioner Kevin Hyland has warned. The Guardian reports children and young people are being used as part of a criminal operation in cities when they should be at school.


The government is considering cutting the number of children parents can claim child benefit for to two or three. The Daily Mail reports that Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has asked his staff to “model” what impact reducing child benefit would have. One option being considered is a cap on the number of children eligible.


Government plans to lower the household benefit cap to £23,000 a year could plunge as many as 40,000 children into poverty, a leaked memo has revealed. The Independent reports that, according to the memo, unless parents affected can find additional work, tens of thousands more children will end up in poverty.


Parents are “poisoning” their children with sugary food and drink and must give them healthier alternatives, the head of the NHS has warned. The Telegraph reports that Simon Stevens warned obesity is the “new smoking’ and said parents must take “responsibility” or put their children at risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes.


The Children’s Society has apologised after sending letters to an 80-year-old cancer survivor asking for £100,000. The Mirror reports that the charity asked retired Robert Newman to pay £2,777 a week for three years to fund a project worker’s job but has now admitted the letters were among several sent to the wrong people.


There has been a “massive increase” in the percentage of young children being permanently excluded from school in Norfolk in recent years, it has emerged. The Eastern Daily Press reports that last year 24 primary children were permanently excluded in the county and this year children as young as three have been banned from nurseries and schools.