Government urged to scrap 'flawed' Child Poverty Bill
Joe Lepper
Friday, October 30, 2009
The government is being called on to scrap the Child Poverty Bill and radically overhaul its child poverty targets.
In its report Poverty of Ambition, the think-tank Policy Exchange says the current measurement of poverty, as an income of 60 per cent below the median income, is "badly flawed".
It says that because the Child Poverty Bill is entrenched in targets relating to income, rather than other indicators of poverty such as low-quality housing, it should be scrapped.
Instead, the think-tank is calling for a more detailed set of social targets dealing with specific indicators, including teenage pregnancy, smoking and low academic achievement.
Natalie Evans, Policy Exchange deputy director, said: "If the current Child Poverty Bill isn’t withdrawn, we will end up with skewed targets focusing solely on income enshrined in law and legally binding on all future governments. The unfortunate reality is that this approach will fail to get to the root of the problem it seeks to solve."
Campaign group End Child Poverty has rejected the report’s findings and said increasing family income is still a worthwhile target.
A spokesman said: "With the country in recession, we should be redoubling our efforts to reduce child poverty rather than abandoning this bill. The 60 per cent of income indicator has proved to be a valuable and relevant way of measuring poverty and creates a good target for countries to work towards."
