Alex Sampson, Plymouth Socialist Party
One glance at the truly horrifying statistics on child poverty shows exactly why change is needed.
In the sixth-richest nation on the planet, it’s appalling. Child poverty is higher in Britain than other similar countries. In England alone in 2023-24, there were 4.5 million children in “relative low income”, and two million in “deep material poverty”. And these figures are rising.
Almost three quarters of all children in poverty are in working households. 172,000 children are currently homeless, living in temporary accommodation.
The waiting lists for social housing are so long that more and more families are forced into unregulated private-rented housing – which is insecure, often poorly maintained, and almost always overpriced.
After delays and delays, Labour has finally said that it will lift the two-child benefit cap from April – almost two years after they took power. That should bring desperately needed relief to 450,000 children, by lifting them out of deep material poverty.
But this will not necessarily last. The cost of living – rent, electricity, food, clothing – continues to rise faster than Universal Credit or pay.
In the last five years, food costs have risen by 37%, energy prices by 62%. Whose pay has risen to keep pace with these rises, except maybe the billionaire bosses?
Labour is still attacking the most vulnerable. The majority of families with a disabled parent live in poverty, and yet the government is trying to cut disability benefits.
Labour acknowledge that the cost of living is a problem, and yet do nothing to cap rents, energy prices, or the profiteering of supermarkets. While the two-child benefit cap has been lifted, Labour is maintaining the overall cap on benefits, which was brought in by the Tories.
We need to ensure that all workers earn a minimum of £15 per hour, that safe, secure, and reasonably priced council housing is available to all who need it, and that energy companies are nationalised, so we can cap bills.
Childcare should be free to all parents who want it. Schools, care services, and the NHS should be properly funded.
But rather than take any of those measures, on the back of its long overdue announcement to abolish the two-child benefit cap, the Labour government has announced a series of policies to supposedly reduce child poverty.
This include an £8 million pilot scheme to help get families out of temporary accommodation faster, but only after six weeks. Labour doesn’t understand that the moment a child loses their home, that knowledge of their insecurity will mentally affect them for life.
Under Labour’s plans, free school meals will still not be provided for the vast majority of children. And children do not exist in isolation. If a child is missing a meal, the chances are that their exhausted, stressed, and overwhelmed parents have missed more. Children notice these things. It affects them.
Labour says its launching new ‘Sure Start’-style family hubs. Sure Start was cut nationally under Tory austerity. But how can we trust Labour to provide local services? It was Labour councils and councillors, voting for millions of pounds of local cuts, every year for 15 years, that cut and depleted Sure Start and other local services.
Labour’s final announcement – making baby formula products available on supermarket discount schemes – comes with a patronising addition. Parents will be made aware that cheaper ‘own brand’ formula is also nutritious! As if parents aren’t already cutting every single penny they can off their food budget.
In 2017 and 2019, Labour under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership stood on a programme of:
- Raising the minimum wage
- Ending austerity, and investing in public services
- Rent control and building 100,000 council homes a year
- Massively expanding free childcare
- Reversing Sure Start cuts, launching a new service
- Free school meals for all primary pupils
Compare that to Labour’s current proposals that will not solve the cost-of-living crisis. In May’s local elections we need candidates who are fighting for policies like those.
To ensure that all children have the life they deserve, we cannot tinker around the edges of a broken and unjust system, it needs a total overhaul. The capitalist system we live under is not providing these things. If we genuinely believe in ensuring that all our children get the best future, we need to fight for socialism.
