Labour's historic opportunity

New Statesman​

6 days ago

Image: Da Antipinum/Shutterstock
There shouldn't be 4.5 million children in the UK living in poverty. That's 4.5 million children who face shorter life expectancies, poorer educational outcomes, worse physical and mental health. It's children who are more likely to be sent home from school because they can't afford the right uniform. They are unable to learn a musical instrument or progress in swimming because lessons are too expensive. Many go cold or hungry and tired despite their parents doing everything they can. It shouldn't be the case that educators warn they can't prioritise teaching because so much time needs to go into dealing with the consequences of poverty, or that children decide which subjects to study based on what they think they can afford. After 14 years of austerity, Covid and the high cost of living, it's the bleak reality we face as a country in 2025. But it shouldn't be like this.
The Labour government promised a different way through. Not only a manifesto commitment to reduce child poverty, but one cemented in its Plan for Change. A child poverty taskforce set up to deliver an ambitious child poverty strategy. A government that knows what can be done, because its Labour predecessors did it before. Over a million children lifted out of poverty between 1998 and 2010. Lives made better, futures rebuilt.
There can be no denying that reducing child poverty matters to this government's wider mission too. Improved living standards and sustainable growth depend on investment in children and their families, sooner rather than later. And it matters to the public. Polling consistently shows people don't think kids should grow up in poverty and that government should do something about it. People want change.
The concern, of course, is that momentum has stalled. It's been almost a year since the general election was called, and while interventions like breakfast clubs are important and welcome, they alone are not enough to make the critical difference. Improving employment rights will help low-paid parents in many ways, but won't alter the fundamental equation that salaries don't adjust for the additional mouths a family has to feed. With the proposed cuts to disability benefits affecting potentially hundreds of thousands of children, the government has only made its task of reducing child poverty harder.
Already the clock is ticking, and without significant intervention, 4.8 million children will live in poverty by 2029. The government risks a legacy of even higher child poverty at the end of this parliament than at the start, an unenviable record and the first time under a modern Labour government.
But unlike many of the other questions the government faces, the answers on this are known, tested and come with the potential to support a genuinely transformational change for children and the whole country.
Family income is still the strongest predictor of how well a child will get on at school, four times more so than where a child grows up. Using the social security system to support family incomes during the time-limited period when the inevitable additional costs of having children puts pressure on budgets must sit front and centre of the child poverty strategy. All the evidence shows that investing in support for children through social security leads to healthier, better developed kids, with the benefits continuing through into adulthood. Improved quality of life in the here and now, improved life chances for the future. It leads to better jobs and reduced pressure on public services, not to mention the extra money this would bring into the local economy where every penny of poorer families' income is spent.
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Child benefit, Universal Credit, free school meals are all building blocks towards stability and security for families with low incomes. A government ambitious to cut child poverty has these ways – and many more – of getting financial support to the low- and middle-income families that need it.
But without first scrapping the two-child limit and benefit cap, the government will find its hands are tied. Every day it exists, the two-child limit pulls another 109 kids into poverty. It will act as a millstone round the neck of anyone who wants to make life better for the children it affects, acting as a drag on any and every effort the government makes to bring the child poverty figures down. For a government concerned about domestic finances in the face of global instability, abolishing the two-child limit and benefit cap is by far the most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty and lift children out of deep poverty.
A government confident in its decade of national renewal can use this child poverty strategy to help the electorate see and feel that things can, and will, get better. A government that believes in the potential of every child won't tell those children to wait for economic growth or leave untouched the lives of kids who need support the most – whatever their age, wherever they come from. This can be a strategy delivered with conviction, backed up with a moral and financial commitment to both immediate and ongoing progress, investing to make sure no child is left behind.
The real test of this strategy, and a real test of this government, will be the difference it makes to the lives and life chances of millions of kids. Now is the moment for this government to make decisions that match its long-term vision, not just the daily balance book. Now is the moment to deliver the change that our children need – and have been promised.
This article first appeared in our Spotlight on Child Poverty supplement, of 23 May 2025, guest edited by Gordon Brown.
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