Ending Child Poverty
Keir Starmer said “We can’t end child poverty unless we have more money to do it – and that’s not going to happen, frankly, in the first term of a Labour government.”
Child poverty shouldn’t be negotiable.
One in three children in Norwich are living in poverty. We need a Government that will put children first, argues Green Party councillor Jamie Osborn.
More than 11,000 children in Norwich are living in poverty.
Many of their families cannot afford three meals a day – some not even two.
Thousands live in cold, damp homes, struggle to afford school uniforms, and, as a result of the lack of opportunity that poverty locks in, their chances of getting a good education and a good job are massively reduced compared to wealthier peers.
The fact that we can allow this to happen in a nation where less than 200 of the richest people hold nearly £700 billion in private wealth is simply unacceptable.
Ending child poverty – and ending the gross inequality that is driving poverty – should be at the very top of the political agenda.
And yet where are our political leaders on this?
In the last few years, the Government has repeatedly tried to cut Free School Meals, as have Conservative-run Norfolk County Council.
In 2016, the Conservatives introduced a cap on benefits for families with three children or more – which has left already struggling families £3,000 worse off, and plunged 1.5 million children into poverty nationally. Since the two-child benefit cap was introduced , the proportion of children in poverty in the Norwich South constituency has risen sharply from from 29% to 34%.
Yet the Labour Party that will almost inevitably form the next Government seems adamant that it will do no better.
Labour has committed to keeping to two-child benefit cap. “We can’t end child poverty unless we have more money to do it – and that’s not going to happen, frankly, in the first term of a Labour government,” the Labour leader Keir Starmer told the BBC last month.
It says something about the state of our politics when neither main party can commit to prioritising the health, education, and happiness of the children hit hardest by the cost of living crisis.
Every one of those children deserves a life that is secure and fulfilled, and every one of them has a story to tell and hopes to fulfil.
But even putting aside the moral case for making sure no child is left behind, there is a hard-headed economic case to invest in our future generations.
Ending child poverty would boost educational attainment, reduce the appeal of drugs and alcohol, and alleviate strain on the NHS by making sure that children grow up healthy.
And as for Keir Starmer’s claim that there is no money: even a modest wealth tax on the top 1% of the richest people in the country, who on average own £3.5 million each, would raise over £10 billion – enough to end the two-child benefit cap and end poverty for 250,000 families ten times over.
It could also pay for the expansion of free school meals to all primary-age children, so that children who don’t qualify for means-tested support and yet live in poor families can eat without worry for struggling parents.
Ending child poverty should not be negotiable.
