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Anti-poverty drive 'failing'

03/12/2007

The government's anti-poverty strategy has "lost momentum", according to a new report published today.

It claims there is an urgent need for a "major rethink" of existing measures to combat poverty and social exclusion, warning there has been "no sustained progress" in reducing child poverty over the past three years.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), which published the study, said the government had fallen short of meeting its short-term target to reduce child poverty and stressed tax credits were having only a limited impact in terms of eradicating the problem.

In 1999 then prime minister Tony Blair pledged to halve the number of children living in poverty within ten years and to eradicate child poverty completely within two decades.

As a short-term goal he also promised to reduce the number of children living in poverty by 2004/05.

But the JRF said although the number of poverty-stricken youngsters had fallen by 600,000 since Labour made the pledge, the government was still 500,000 short of meeting the short-term target.

The study also said there had been a year-on-year increase of 200,000 in the number of children living in poverty in 2005/06.

It added while government tax credits took around a million children a year out of poverty, the number of working families relying on the support to escape the problem was rising – stressing low wages were exacerbating the situation.

Meanwhile a separate report by MPs has warned the government's pledge to halve child poverty by 2010 appears to be in doubt because ministers have failed to explain what action they are taking to meet the goal.

Parliament's Treasury select committee said the government "may have drawn back from a whole-hearted commitment" to achieve the target and criticised the comprehensive spending review for neglecting to set out how the 2010 goal would be met.

Commenting on the report, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) chief executive Kate Green said: "Child poverty remains shockingly high in Britain despite our national wealth.

"The chancellor has given clear confirmation that the Treasury remains committed to the 2010 promise to halve child poverty, but the uncertainty about how this will be resourced and achieved cannot continue."