Increasing benefits would only make child poverty worse - Bill Carmichael

Emma Lewell-Buck, Labour MP for South Shields and co-chair of the APPG told the BBC: “Whilst poverty is, sadly, not a new experience for many children in the north, the scale and severity of deprivation is now unprecedented.

“As the cost of living crisis worsens, vulnerable children and families, especially in the north, are being pushed to the edge.”

The report found that during the pandemic 34 per cent of children in the north (around 900,000) were living in poverty compared to 28 per cent in the rest of England. This equates to 160,000 extra children in poverty in the north.

Before the current crisis 15 per cent of northern households - around one million - were fuel poor, compared to 12 per cent in other parts of the country.

The researchers also found that families in the north are more likely to be living in poor quality, damp homes. More than 98,500 homes already had some form of damp, and 1.1 million homes failed ‘decent homes’ criteria.

The report’s authors rightly point out that poverty and poor housing will cause immediate and lifelong harms for children in terms of worsening physical and mental health, poor education and lower productivity.

There is a terrible human cost and loss of potential. Imagine the creativity and dynamism that would be unleashed if we could lift just 20 per cent of these people out of poverty.

So I think people across the political spectrum can agree that poverty is a bad thing and more could be done to combat it. But what exactly?

The report suggests several solutions, for example that benefits should be increased in line with inflation, free school meals should be expanded to all families in receipt of Universal Credit, and further help should be provided for families who have to use prepayment meters for their energy needs.

These seem like short term solutions, and there is the further problem that making benefits more generous could act as a disincentive to work. Why would anyone slave away doing an eight hour shift when they can sit on the sofa all day and not be any worse off?

The government points out there are already generous payments for the poorest families, and as a result there were 200,000 fewer children in “absolute poverty”, after housing costs, than there were in 2019/20.

Indeed, this month eight million people on means tested benefits received their third cost of living payment of £299, making a total of £900 in a year in help paid directly into their bank accounts without having to claim for it.

Is it enough? Well the authors of this report will say no, but I wonder if any amount would be enough? As Jesus said in the Gospels: “The poor you will always have with you.”

As it happens I know a little about poverty. I was born and brought up in a large council estate called Kirkby on Merseyside. The borough I lived in - Knowsley - is invariably near the top of every index of deprivation you can name, whether it be unemployment, crime, long-term sickness, youth obesity, the levels of teenage pregnancy, poor educational attainment, drug addiction, alcoholism etc.

Knowsley is invariably at the wrong end of the table, and this has not changed for half a century. Yet I have been lucky enough to live a productive life.

I went from my Kirkby comprehensive school to Cambridge University and a reasonably successful career as a journalist and an educator.

Why? One simple answer - work. My father was a stevedore on Liverpool docks, and my mother worked in a Bird’s Eye food factory.

In the 1930s they experienced dreadful, grinding poverty - far worse than anything, even people on benefits, see today - and their singular, steely determination was to give their children a better life than they had experienced themselves.

Even during times of high unemployment they were never out of work.

So increase benefits all you like, and all you will produce is more people who are dependent on benefits.

Work, and not the endless dependency of benefits, is the real answer to conquering poverty.