The Prime Minister must know he can’t scare people into good health, but his words this morning will be chilling for low-income families up and down the country who rely on our social security system for help.
Today’s official poverty statistics show child poverty has reached a record high with an estimated 100,000 more children pulled into poverty last year.
Rising child poverty across rest of UK suggests Scottish policies are helping families but campaigners say new data must act as a “stark reminder” more is needed to meet legally binding child poverty targets.
For almost fifteen years, the four million kids from poor families have been at the bottom of the pile and today is no different. This was a Budget all but blind to buckling family budgets and broken public services and will leave a legacy of crumbling classrooms, cold homes, and empty tummies.
“If the Scottish government can manage to drive down child poverty through the Scottish child payment there is absolutely no reason UK government cannot provide equivalent investment”
Charity’s briefing to MPs warns of ‘catastrophic’ results if UK government policies continue to ignore children in poverty. Budget must scrap the two-child limit, remove the benefit cap and increase child benefit by £20 a week.
Court of Appeal upholds decision that universal credit payments can be backdated on revision, but claimants risk still being thwarted by DWP IT design flaws and those subject to managed migration face ‘double whammy’ loss of transitional protections and backdated payments.
CPAG is calling on the government to extend its new timescales for moving people from older benefits to universal credit to prevent vulnerable claimants from falling through the cracks.
Universal credit (UC) claimants are not always getting extra amounts of UC they’re entitled to when they become eligible for some other benefits because of poor data-sharing within the DWP.