Child Poverty Action Group

Responding today to the Chancellor’s Budget speech, Child Poverty Action Group Chief Executive Alison Garnham said:

“The chancellor made claim to a truly national recovery but this is a ‘see no poverty, hear no poverty’ Budget which continues to leave children and the low paid behind.

Supreme Court judges have criticised the Government’s benefit cap for breaching international law on the rights of children. However, the Court declined to overturn the controversial policy, leaving the issue to be settled “in the political, rather than the legal arena”.

 5th March 2015

Responding to reports that a three-child limit on child benefit is being considered, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group Alison Garnham said:

Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has welcomed the partial restoration of central government funding for Local Welfare Assistance schemes (LWAs) - the successor to the Social Fund – and hopes the funding levels of recent years will be restored in the near future.

Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has strongly criticised the government’s decision, announced today, to cut local authorities’ budgets for discretionary housing payments by 24% (from £165m in 2014 -15 to £125m for 2015-16)1

• 1. Discretionary Financial Assistance Regulations 2001 SI No. 11167 p1599

Responding today to reports that the Government wants to impose a more severe benefit cap of £23,000 pa per household, Alison Garnham, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said:

“Let’s be absolutely clear. The benefit cap is at least nine times more likely to affect children than adults (1), and the majority of adults it hits are lone parents, many of whom have children so young even the Government recognises they should not be required to work.

Child Poverty Action Group has criticised the Government’s decision to maintain the cut in funding for local welfare assistance schemes (LWAs), announced today by Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Kris Hopkins in the Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement.

The council-run schemes succeeded the Social Fund in 2013 and can grant moderate amounts to people in critical need. (1)

Alison Garnham, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said:

Responding to the APPG’s report on food poverty, Feeding Britain: A strategy for zero hunger in England, Scotland and Wales, Alison Garnham Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said:

“The report is absolutely clear that there is growing hunger in the UK, that tackling it must be a national priority and that fixing the administration of benefits will remove a key trigger for food bank use.

Responding to today’s Autumn Statement, Alison Garnham Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said:

 

“It’s striking that the only giveaway for children was for families who can afford to fly them abroad on holiday. For millions more children, today’s Autumn Statement is about staying the course for poverty rather than prosperity.

 

Commenting on today’s NAO progress report on Universal Credit, Alison Garnham, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said:

“It is really disturbing that at this stage the NAO must ask for confirmation of the DWP’s plans for delivering Universal Credit in terms of its cost, timing and how it will work.