Rise in child poverty shows levelling up challenge

The End Child Poverty Coalition has revealed that, even before the pandemic, the majority of children are growing up in poverty in some parts of the UK, once housing costs are taken into account.

The research shows that the North East of England has seen the most dramatic rise in child poverty in the past five years, fuelled by stagnating family incomes. The child poverty rate has risen by over a third – from 26 per cent to 37 per cent – over five years, moving from just below the UK average to the second highest of any region, after London. A third of the overall increase happened in the latest year with many low-paid workers pushed below the poverty line by the freeze in their in-work benefits.

The new data also confirms London and Birmingham, two of the UK’s largest cities, as having the greatest concentrations of child poverty with a dozen constituencies showing the majority of children living below the poverty line, even before large numbers of people started losing their jobs as a result of the pandemic.

Anna Feuchtwang, chair of the End Child Poverty Coalition, said: “The figures speak for themselves – the situation for children couldn’t be starker. We all want to live in a society where children are supported to be the best they can be, but the reality is very different for too many.

“The UK government can be in no doubt about the challenge it faces if it is serious about ‘levelling up’ parts of the country hardest hit by poverty. After the year we’ve all had, they owe it to our children to come up with a plan to tackle child poverty that includes a boost to children’s benefits. And they need to scrap plans to cut Universal Credit given parents and children are having a tough enough time as it is.”