Child Poverty

Dear constituent,

Thank you for contacting me about ending child poverty.

Before the pandemic, there were over four million children growing up in poverty. In the months ahead, that will only increase and it may rise to five million by 2023-24. Child poverty is a pandemic of its own.

I find it extremely worrying that the Government is considering a cut to Universal Credit (UC). The Resolution Foundation warns it could mean six million households face an income loss of £1,000, at a time when unemployment could still be at its highest level in a generation. I believe the Government must fund the provision of free school meals in every school holiday until Easter 2021, and I disagree with it citing the increase to UC as a reason not to provide them.

I also believe the two-child limit and benefit cap should be abolished. These policies risk pushing thousands of families into rent arrears and debt and I believe the Government should urgently review them, particularly as families face increased restrictions.

Although I welcomed the increase in Local Housing Allowance, I believe the Government should go further by raising it to the 50th percentile so that it covers average rents in each area. People need all the support we can give them to prevent what would be an unprecedented spike in homelessness.

In July, the National Food Strategy published a report recommending the Government expand free school meals eligibility to every child up to 16 years old from a household where the parent or guardian is in receipt of UC or equivalent. It said a legacy of COVID-19 could be a dramatic increase in unemployment and poverty, and therefore hunger. Ministers need to consider this report carefully – recent analysis estimates that as many as 900,000 more children have sought free school meals during the pandemic.

More widely, the Government needs to commit to ending the five-week wait for UC and legacy benefits need to be uplifted. Longer term, I will continue to support calls for UC to be replaced with a system which offers a proper social security safety net to all.

Thank you once again for contacting me about this issue.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Dowd MP