Scrapping poverty targets will make children ‘invisible’, charity warns

Alison Garnham, CPAG chief executive, warns Hackney children will be hit the hardest. Photograph: CPAG

Thousands of Hackney children will be made “invisible” by government plans to abolish targets to reduce child poverty, a children’s charity has cautioned.

The Welfare Reform and Work Bill, being considered today in the House of Lords, will scrap child poverty targets and instead introduce goals for GCSE attainment, and the number of children living in households where parents or carers are out of work.

“Hackney has one of the highest child poverty rates in the country but those kids will be nigh on invisible if government plans to scrap the targets go ahead,” said Alison Garnham, chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), a national charity based in Hackney.

Approximately 37 per cent of children in Hackney are affected by poverty – almost double the rate for England (20.1 per cent) and much higher than the London average of 26.7 per cent.

Ms Garnham said educational attainment cannot substitute a measure of poverty.

“And two thirds of poor children have a parent in work, so if we only measure worklessness those children will be airbrushed out of the picture,” she said.

According to Hackney Council’s Child Poverty Needs Assessment, child poverty is measured by calculating the percentage of children or young people whose families receive tax credits or out-of-work benefits yet still take home less than 60 per cent of the national median income.

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which put forward the bill, said the new measures will tackle the “root causes” of child poverty, rather than the “symptoms”.

“This is why our proposals in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill introduce new measures for worklessness and educational attainment.”

“The number of workless households is at a record low. The number of children living in relative poverty is at its lowest level since the 1980s and income inequality is falling.”

But Ms Graham warned that child poverty rates are likely to rise and if we do not measure it, we will not know whether policies are helping or hindering them.

Commenting on local initiatives to tackle child poverty, a Hackney Council spokesperson said: “Child poverty is as a very real issue for many households across the country and here, in Hackney, we know there are too many families struggling to feed, house and clothe their children.  

“The Council is committed to tackling child poverty and it’s vital that the Government is too. We are working with our partners to reduce the number of children whose life chances are made worse because they are poor.

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