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The Child Poverty bill: submission from Gingerbread (CP 04)
Introduction
1. Gingerbread is the national charity working with single parent families. Formed following a merger of the National Council for One Parent Families and Gingerbread, we now provide increased support and a stronger campaigning voice for single parents and their families.
2. Gingerbread warmly welcomes the introduction of legislation to ensure that the target to end child poverty by 2020 is achieved. This has the potential to transform the lives of thousands of single parent families.
Single parents and poverty
3. There are 1.9 million single parents in
the
4. However, children in single parent families face twice the risk of poverty of those who grow up with two parents. Despite dramatic falls in the risk of child poverty since 1997 when 62 per cent of children in single parent families lived in poverty, in the past three years, progress on tackling child poverty has stalled. In 2006-07 52 per cent of children were poor; in 2005-06 it had fallen to 50 per cent. But the latest figures show that 52 per cent of children in single parent families were poor in 2007-08. That means there are 1,612,000 poor children growing up with a single parent.[1]
5. There is no automatic association
between single parenthood and poverty. Many of the countries which achieve a
low rate of child poverty have rates of single parenthood which are comparable
to the
6. Further analysis of the wellbeing of children internationally has
repeated the finding that levels of wellbeing cannot be linked to levels of
single-parenthood within a country. Child Poverty Action Group's briefing on
the research states that: living in lone or step parent families and found no association between this and child wellbeing. Poor child wellbeing is therefore not explained by a large number of lone parent or step families. Policy focused on favouring particular family forms is unlikely, therefore, to boost child wellbeing.[3]
7. Specific circumstances and policy failures mean that single parents in this country face a particularly high risk of poverty:
· Single parents continue to receive low rates of child maintenance: just over half of families where there is a non resident parent have an arrangement for child maintenance in place; only 68 per cent of these families receive any maintenance. · Combining paid work and care for children remains difficult due to the high costs of childcare, and difficulty of finding part time work. These factors also contribute to poverty rates amongst couple families, particularly those in which a second earner is not able to find employment. · Gender and unequal pay plays a major role in explaining why lone parents are poor: nine out of ten lone parents are women. The median gross weekly earnings for male lone parents are £346; the figure for female lone parents is £194.
The child poverty bill
8. Gingerbread warmly welcomes the introduction of legislation to ensure that the target to end child poverty by 2020 is achieved. This legislation has the potential to dramatically change the lives of children now and in the future.
9. We believe that the Bill provides a strong framework for action. We particularly welcome the duty on Government to present a strategy on the steps it will take to remove child poverty, and the duty to report annually on how this has been taken forward. We also welcome the duty on local authorities to prepare a joint child poverty strategy. We hope that these strategies will embed a commitment to tackling child poverty across both national and local government.
10. We think that the measurement tools chosen to assess the level of child poverty in the UK - relative low income, combined low income and material deprivation, absolute poverty and persistent poverty - are the right ones, although we would prefer the 'relative low income' target to be measured on an after housing costs basis.
11. However, we believe that the definition of 'eradication' to be used as regards the relative low income target - that no more than 10 per cent of children should be in poverty at any one time - is not ambitious enough. We believe that the relative low income target should be set so that no more than 5 per cent of children are in poverty on this definition. Whilst we recognise the measurement difficulties of reaching a number below 5 per cent, we do not think that a situation in which one in ten children is still poor should be seen as acceptable.
12. We understand that incomes are dynamic, as is the economy. Beyond 2020 we therefore suggest that the 5 per cent target could be measured as the average of child poverty figures over three years in any given year. We think that this would allow some scope to take account of short-term income drops, whilst maintaining a clear focus on the importance of eradicating, not just reducing child poverty.
Conclusion
13. Significant progress has been made in tackling child poverty in the last twelve years, but data from the last three years suggest that this has stalled. The current economic climate clearly places more families at the risk of falling below the poverty line, with unemployment a primary cause of child poverty. In addition to a strategy to meet the 2020 target, Government must be attending to the needs of families now. Investing in families hardest hit by the recession will help Government to come closer to its target to halve child poverty by 2010, as well as meeting the urgent needs of families for support.
October 2009 [1] DWP (2009) Households Below Average Income - An Analysis of the Income Distribution 1994/95-2007/08 available at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/hbai/hbai2008/pdf_files/full_hbai09.pdf [2] Unicef (2007) Child poverty in perspective: An overview of child well being in rich countries Unicef, Innocenti Research Centre. [3] CPAG (2009) Child wellbeing and child poverty: Where the |