This year, the annual child poverty statistics, using the UK Government's own data, will show consistently high rates of child poverty, once again. More than one in four children in our society are living in hardship, in parts closer to one in three. This is despite the UK being the fifth largest economy in the world. Some people think that when interventions like extending Free School Meals is achieved, the problem goes away, and whilst of course Free School Meals are an essential part of what hard-pressed parents need, the experience of growing up in poverty reaches far beyond needing a hot meal at lunch. It’s an experience that can ruin childhood and leave lifelong scars.
When Marcus Rashford started to publicly campaign against child poverty during the first year of the pandemic, it's fair to say the anti-poverty sector had found their hero. A celebrated sports man with first-hand experience of the issue who did more to raise the profile of child poverty than we had been fighting to do for the last decade. Communities, businesses, politicians were aligned behind this need, spurred on by a moral outrage that children in our plentiful country were going hungry. Save the Children was also campaigning hard for this change, and together we successfully called on the UK Government to extend access to Free School Meals.
But food poverty is easy to grasp. It's also difficult to accept. It's our natural instinct as civilized humans that when an innocent, vulnerable child needs food, and that food is available elsewhere, we should do everything within our power to get it to them.
The problem is, child poverty is much deeper than hungry bellies. It’s falling behind at school, because the house was cold last night and there was nowhere to do homework.
It’s the absence from non-school uniform day because your clothes are hand me-downs and kids can be cruel.
It's running out of excuses when your friends want to spend money on shopping or the cinema at weekends and you have to stay home again.
"I remember how poverty made me feel. Always being acutely aware of your social position forces you to mature a lot earlier" - Liv, End Child Poverty Youth Ambassador, aged 18
It's not going to a birthday party because your mum is fighting to cover the essentials, let alone buy your mate a present. And not telling mum about the school trip because the cost is too dear, and you know she can't work any further shifts.
All this can add up to a childhood of missed experiences, missed opportunities, of social exclusion and insecurity.
One of our parent campaigners told me growing up in poverty as a child still makes her feel like a failure today. Being from the 'wrong estate' meant she was treated differently by adults, made to feel that she wouldn't amount to anything and treated with suspicion. She internalized that feeling through to adulthood and still struggles with her self-worth. Cruelly, she now experiences poverty as a mother, and she wants so desperately for her daughter to have everything she didn't have. But with stagnant wages, cuts and freezes to social security, and now a cost-of-living crisis, it feels like an impossible goal.
The cost of everyday essentials is continuing to soar, and it won’t be long before winter approaches and heating bills will rise even further again. If wages and benefits stay the same, we risk thousands, possibly millions more children being pulled into poverty. That’s millions more childhoods at risk. Millions more adults dealing with the lasting scars of poverty.
But there are solutions. This doesn't have to be the way things are. The small dip in the child poverty statistics last year shows what happens when the Government steps in and takes action to fix our broken social safety net. Their £20 per week increase to Universal Credit was a lifeline to so many families and helped rectify the years of cuts and freezes to the system. But they took this money away again on the eve of the first energy cap being lifted.
With everything happening in politics right now, their attention might be elsewhere. But the Government must not forget the desperate situation families are facing every day, and the immense strain on the children of today and the adults of tomorrow. They must act and invest in Universal Credit and the benefits system permanently. It’s the most efficient way to help the poorest families escape from hardship. No child should be scarred from poverty. Let's give our children an equal chance.
