Comprehensive Spending Review is make or break for 2010 child poverty target

Child Poverty Action Group today published online their report Comprehensive Spending Review 2007: what it needs to deliver on child poverty.

Publication coincides with an appearance before the Treasury Select Committee by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP, to be questioned by MPs on the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). Child poverty questions will feature strongly following the Committee’s recommendation that either the 2007 Budget or CSR is used to explain the Government’s strategy for halving child poverty by 2010.

CPAG’s report has also been submitted to the Treasury Select Committee as evidence for their investigation into spending review emerging issues.

Kate Green, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said:

“With half of child poverty in families with work, and many other poor families with parents unable to work, the spending review must invest in a more wide-ranging strategy than just getting more parents into employment.

“Better jobs are needed with opportunities to progress so families are not trapped in in-work poverty. More financial support is needed where work is not a credible option, such as for some lone parent families, disabled parents or carers. This could be delivered with greatest reach through increases to child benefit.

“The spending review really is make or break for meeting the target to halve child poverty by 2010. It can be done, but without the extra investment for those children at greatest risk of poverty, the UK’s 3.4 million children below the poverty line will be let down and left on the margins.”

Notes to editors

• The Child Poverty Action Group Report Comprehensive Spending Review 2007: what it needs to deliver on child poverty can be found through this link: http://www.cpag.org.uk/CSR_2007/
• The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) will be announced by the Chancellor in a statement to the House of Commons in the summer.
• The CSR is a zero-based review determining spending allocations for all government departments up to the end of 2010/11 financial year. This means decisions made in the review will play a major determining role in the extra investment that will be provided to make progress towards the target of halving child poverty by 2010.
• The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP, is being questioned by the Treasury Select Committee at 10am on 30th January. More information on the committee’s investigation can be found here: http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/treasury_committee/tc011206pn13.cfm
• The Treasury Committee’s report on ‘The 2006 Pre-Budget Report’, published on 25 January 2007, contained a chapter on child poverty and stated:
  
  “We recommend that, either in the 2007 Budget or in reporting the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review, the Government outline its strategic position with respect to the 2010–11 target [to halve child poverty].”
  
  The full report can be found here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmtreasy/115/115.pdf
• Detailed research and analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation last year suggested that an additional annual investment of at least £4 billion a year would be needed to meet the 2010 target. More information can be found at: http://www.jrf.org.uk/child%2Dpoverty/
• One of Child Poverty Action Group’s specific calls is for child benefit for younger children, which is currently paid at £11.40 per week, to be raised to the same level as that for the oldest child, currently £17.45. More information on this can be found at our campaign site: www.makechildbenefitcount.org

For further information please contact:
Tim Nichols
CPAG Press Officer
Tel. 020 7812 5216 or 07816 909302
press@cpag.org.uk