Working families deserve much more from Osborne

While the coalition’s early political rhetoric to implement the Child Poverty Act was positive, it has turned out to be empty. The reality is that government actions have relentlessly increased the wealth gap. For millions of the poorest people, wages and benefits are frozen or cut, and inflation remains high.

The most widely used measure of poverty is “relative low-income poverty before housing costs”. This translates to a poverty threshold of about £12 per family member per day, for everything except rent and rates – food, heating, clothing, transport, leisure and any holidays that can be afforded.

It also has to cover the “extras” such as school trips and equipment. More than one child in five across the UK lives with this level of poverty or even worse.

To bring this home, take a look at your bank statement and work out, for your family, how much you actually spent last month on non-housing costs, and compare that with the £12 figure. Imagine what you would spend if you only had that £12 or less, and a family with three or four school-aged children.

Where housing costs are high, it is difficult to manage even if you are in work. Newham Council is reported to have evicted a pregnant mother and her family days before she was due to give birth. She is a cleaner who works at the Supreme Court, and her husband also works as a cleaner.

Another consequence of the wealth gap, then, is the increasing poverty of those in low-paid work – the Bob Cratchit syndrome.

The Chancellor is cutting public spending and taxes to stimulate the economy. It is not working, but he won’t change tack, and the estimates are that the coming budget will have to include a further £10bn cut in spending or increase in taxation.

So this is simply a plea to George Osborne to take child poverty and the wealth gap seriously in his calculations. But I’m not holding my breath.

John Freeman CBE is a former director of children’s services and is now a freelance consultant