March 2008
The Budget and Child Poverty -
I was in the House of Commons on Wednesday to hear the Chancellor announce the Budget for the coming year. At the heart of this budget was the Government’s commitment to tackle child poverty.
Every child deserves the opportunity to lead a happy, healthy and prosperous life. Child poverty cripples this chance and prevents children from reaching their potential.
Over the last ten years, the Government has lifted 600,000 children out of relative poverty and more than halved the number in absolute poverty from 3.4 million in 1998 to 1.6 million today. This is a great achievement. But – for those children still in poverty – we must do more.
The Budget announced this week introduces significant measures that will make progress towards the target of halving child poverty by 2010. From April 2009, the first child rate of Child Benefit will be increased to £20 a week and the child element of the Child Tax Credit will be increased by £50 a year above indexation. From October 2009, Child Benefit will be disregarded in calculating income for Housing and Council Tax Benefit to improve work incentives for many of the lowest paid families and boost their incomes. Together these changes will help to lift a further 250,000 children out of poverty.
Tackling child poverty is a crucial issue – not least in our local area. In Northfield alone more that 10,000 families will benefit from the increase in Child Benefit.
This is an issue that I am pleased to say is at the very heart of Government policy.
