Response to Government Report on child poverty in the UK

Leading children's charities call on the government to keep the focus on incomes
8.06.04

…Changing the definition would undermine public confidence…

Responding to the government's report on child poverty in the UK, which was published today in reply to the Parliamentary Work and Pensions Select Committee report, Dr Paul Dornan of the leading children's charity, the Child Poverty Action Group said:

'We welcome the government's progress on reducing child poverty. We do though continue to be concerned that changes in the definition of child poverty may undermine future success and public confidence.'

The Child Poverty Action Group with the charity One Parent Families have joined to call on the government to renew its commitment to measuring child poverty in the UK by family income.

Writing to all Members of Parliament this week, CPAG and OPF have said,

'We are calling on the government to maintain its existing poverty measures. Any new proposals will affect the numbers of children who are counted as poor … and will have an important influence on policies chosen to meet the critical goal of ending child poverty.'

In December 2003 the government published new proposals for the method of measuring child poverty. Decisions by the government on the measurement are to be made shortly before the July spending review announcement. The two groups are concerned that any new measures may reduce the numbers of children counted as poor and therefore make targets to reduce child poverty easier to achieve.

Writing to all MPs, Dr. Paul Dornan from CPAG and Kate Green from OPF said,

'It appears that the proposed changes in the measurement of child poverty may substantially reduce the numbers of children defined as poor. If the numbers categorised as poor were to be reduced so too would be the policies required to improve incomes.

'Under these circumstances, government would be seen to have moved the goalposts and this would seriously undermine public confidence in policy.'

The two groups have written to the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Andrew Smith, calling on them to keep the income measure for child poverty, until there is sufficient data on how many children will be counted as poor under the proposed measures. They have said that otherwise any changes to the measures may undermine confidence in the campaign to end child poverty.

For further comments
Ashley Riley
Press Officer
Tel 020 7812 5216
Mobile 07811 324339
ariley@cpag.org.uk

Notes:

The Department for Work and Pensions have today published Report on Child Poverty in the UK. Reply by the Government to the Second Report of the Work and Pensions Select Committee Session 2003-04 [ 262 KB pdf document] or a copy of the report is available from CPAG, ariley@cpag.org.uk

1. On March 18th 1999 Tony Blair promised to end child poverty within 'a generation', subsequently defined as to fall by a quarter by 2004/5, half by 2010 and to be ended by 2020. Currently 3.6 million children are categorised as poor in Great Britain defined as living in a household with a disposable (after housing costs) income below 60 per cent of the median.

2. The Public Service Agreement to reduce child poverty currently defines this as living in a household with an income below 60 per cent of median on both the before (2.6) and after housing costs basis (3.6 million).

3. In December 2003 the Department for Work and Pensions proposed three new
measures: based on absolute low incomes, relative low incomes and material deprivation and low income combined. All of these were to use before housing costs data. We do not yet know how these will be used to provide targets for reducing child poverty.

4. The absolute low income measure is proposed to be based on 1998/99 incomes and
the numbers counted as poor are likely to reduce overtime irrespective of policy. This is likely to categorise many fewer children as poor. The relative low income measure would categorise 2.9 million children as poor – 700,000 less than the current headline measure. It is difficult to say how many children would be categorised as poor on the material deprivation and low income combined measure since data is having to be specially collected on this. If the same proportion were materially deprived as were in the 1999 Poverty and Social Exclusion survey, 2.4 million children would be counted as poor – 1.2 million less than currently counted as poor.

5. The government's response to the Work and Pension committee report 'Child Poverty in the UK' is expected out imminently, a new PSA target is expected to be released in the July Comprehensive Spending Review.

CPAG promotes action for the relief, directly or indirectly, of poverty among children and families with children. We work to ensure that those on low incomes get their full entitlement to welfare benefits. We receive no money from government and rely on donations. In our campaigning and information work we seek to improve benefits and policies for low-income families, in order to eradicate the injustice of poverty.