Further evidence has concluded the Government will most likely miss targets to end child poverty by 2020.
According to LG News:
Latest forecasts predict 3.5m children will be in absolute poverty by the end of the decade, almost five times the number required to meet the Government’s legal obligations.
Assessments made by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission concluded the Government lacked ‘any credible plan’ to get levels back on track.
The findings follow a damning report from Save the Children, which last month claimed current strategies to combat child poverty were little more than ‘window dressing’.
The Government said it remains ‘committed’ to ending child poverty by 2020, with current strategies outlining ‘plans to tackle the root causes of poverty, including worklessness, low earnings and educational failure’.
However the Commission refuted Government claims that getting more people into work through Universal Credit and welfare reform would correct failures to reduce child poverty.
Alan Milburn, chair of the Commission and former Labour health secretary, said: ‘The Government’s draft child poverty strategy is a missed opportunity. The farce of ministers proving unable to agree on how to measure poverty after rubbishing existing measures is particularly lamentable.
‘The Government’s approach falls far short of what is needed to reduce, yet alone end child poverty in our country. Our new research shows that the gap between the objective of making child poverty history and the reality is becoming ever wider.
‘Across the political spectrum, party leaders now need to come clean about what they plan to do to hit the targets, or what progress they can deliver if they expect to fall short,’ Milburn added.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: ‘Under this Government there are 300,000 fewer children living in relative income poverty and 100,000 fewer children in workless poor families. We have just seen the largest rise in employment for over 40 years and unemployment is falling. But there is more to do – and we are getting on with that job.’