Campaigners welcome child poverty investment
Tom Lloyd
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Groups working with children and young people have broadly welcomed the announcements in the Budget.
The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, promised to spend £1.7bn over the next two years on a range of benefit reforms designed to lift 250,000 children out of poverty.
Martin Narey, Barnardo's chief executive and chair of the Campaign to End Child Poverty, said: "A lot more needs to be done and we will continue to put pressure on the government to meet the 2010 commitment but this is dramatically good news for children living in poverty."
The Every Disabled Child Matters group described the proposals as "encouraging and an important step forward".
The government has promised to halve child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it by 2020. Alongside the Budget the Treasury published a document setting out its long term plans to achieve the 2020 goal, Ending child poverty: everybody's business.
In the Budget Darling also announced that £200m will be spent on education to ensure that fewer than 30 per cent of students fail to get five good GCSEs in all schools by 2011.
And he raised the tax on alcoholic drinks by six per cent to fund the child poverty measures and reduce excessive drinking.
Martin Narey, Barnardo's chief executive and chair of the Campaign to End Child Poverty, said: "A lot more needs to be done and we will continue to put pressure on the government to meet the 2010 commitment but this is dramatically good news for children living in poverty."
The Every Disabled Child Matters group described the proposals as "encouraging and an important step forward".
The government has promised to halve child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it by 2020. Alongside the Budget the Treasury published a document setting out its long term plans to achieve the 2020 goal, Ending child poverty: everybody's business.
In the Budget Darling also announced that £200m will be spent on education to ensure that fewer than 30 per cent of students fail to get five good GCSEs in all schools by 2011.
And he raised the tax on alcoholic drinks by six per cent to fund the child poverty measures and reduce excessive drinking.
