Under the last Labour Government the number of children in poverty rose by 400,000 to four million, partly as a result of a fall in the average income of the poorest 20 per cent of households by £7 a week since 2005. This is in spite of Labour’s 1999 pledge ‘to be the first generation to end child poverty’.
I believe that child poverty is one of the biggest issues facing our country. The previous Government measured poverty along an arbitrary income line and has been concerned with simply trying to push as many people over that threshold as possible. This is why Great Britain saw only a six per cent reduction in child poverty while welfare spending increased by 60 per cent. I think this approach is profoundly wrong because poverty is not just about a lack of money; it often has more to do with a lack of employment, educational failure, debt, drink and substance abuse and family breakdown. It is imperative that we get to the root cause of these problems rather than simply trying to treat the symptoms.
The problem for many people is that they lose money as they try to enter work or increase their hours. They also have no challenge or specialist support offered to them from the Job Centre. Universal Credit is designed to withdraw benefits more slowly as people earn more so that people are no longer faced with the 96 per cent tax rates that they are effectively hit with now. Under Universal Credit, 3 million families will be better off by around £168 a month. The majority of these – 75 per cent - will come from the bottom two fifths of the income scale. People can also receive specialist support from the Work Programme if they are unemployed for a significant period of time.
Ministers recognise that childcare is often a major barrier for parents entering the job market and this is why the Government is investing an additional £300 million into childcare support. This will mean that around 80,000 more families with children will benefit from childcare support for the first time by removing the hours rule which meant parents would have to work at least 16 hours a week before they qualified for support. This is in addition to the 15 hours of free childcare to three and four year olds and the most disadvantaged two years olds.
The Government has also introduced the Pupil Premium, which puts an additional £2.5 billion into school funding, as a way of addressing the current inequalities between children eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) and their wealthier peers. Through £683,000 in local funding last year, 1,590 children benefited from this support which has helped tackle disadvantage and ensure that all Crawley pupils get the high quality education they deserve.
I welcome the Government's moves to help ease the enormous pressure on household incomes at the moment, including: increasing the personal income tax allowance by a further £235 in April 2013 resulting in 1,700 Crawley residents having been taken out of paying income tax altogether and a further 42,000 residents receiving reduced income tax bills; funded a three year Council tax freeze; maintained record low interest rates ensuring that mortgage bills remain affordable (for every 1 per cent interest rate increase mortgage bills would rise by £1,000 per year); largest ever cash increase to the state pension to £110.15 per week; and blocking Labour’s £193 a year energy bill increase.