child poverty

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Some recent stories from the excellent Left Foot Forward blog

UK workers ramp up pressure on Big Tech to end Israeli military contract

Tech workers launch UK campaign and mass call to action against company complicity with Israeli government

Tech workers in the UK have ramped up a campaign calling on Google and Amazon to terminate an AI contract with the Israeli government arguing it constitutes a breach of the companies core values.  

Project Nimbus is a $1.2 billion contract signed by Google and Amazon to provide cloud technology to the Israeli government and military. Workers have been campaigning against it since the contract was initially signed in 2021.

Opposition has ramped up since the latest Israeli military attacks on Gaza, following the Hamas attacks and kidnaps on October 7 when 1,200 people were killed, and now with more than 15,000 Palestinians, including 6,000 children, killed by Israeli bombing.

One Google employee said: “The images we see over and over again are of hi-tech military bombardment directed at a civilian population.

“Tech workers built Israel’s capacity for this and it’s our responsibility to get tech companies to stop doing business with Israel as long as it commits war crimes and genocide.”

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Young audience members perfectly sum up attitudes towards government’s immigration policies on Question Time  

‘We should welcome these people.’

Following Sunak’s desperate defence of his latest plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda during an emergency press conference, debate on this week’s Question Time was focused on the beleagured deportation deal.

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During the heated discussion on the Rwanda policy and immigration, a young man in the audience managed to sum up in a sentence how many people feel about the way Britain should treat people coming to the UK to flee persecution.

He said: “I would like to ask a Conservative member of the Cabinet. Rather than blame these poor people that are coming over being exploited and threatened with deportation to what has been ruled as an unsafe country, why can’t we rather open up more legal safe routes and options for these people to flee persecution or any trouble they’re going through, to come to a safe country like the United Kingdom, we should welcome these people.”

The comment was met by an enthusiastic applause from the audience.

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A young woman in the audience then asked the panel: “Previously you mentioned British values. How do you think that the Rwanda scheme complies with the tolerance that Britain is supposed to stand for?”

Later in the programme, another young member of the audience received applause when he stated: “Illegal migration makes up 5 percent of the total migration to the country, I think Rwanda is just used as a distraction from your failings.”

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Cost of Rwanda scheme spirals to £290m despite no deportation flights taking off

‘The Tories’ have wasted an astronomical £290 million of taxpayers’ money on a failing scheme which hasn’t sent a single asylum seeker to Rwanda.’

The cost of the government’s Rwanda deportation scheme, which has been ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court, has more than doubled to £290 million, despite the fact that not a single deportation flight has taken off.

The latest costs of the scheme were revealed overnight, with the prime minister signing off on a £100m payment to the east African nation this year, on top of the £140m already spent on the policy.

The Home Office has pencilled in another £50m payment next year as the plan hangs in the balance.

Labour has condemned the waste of taxpayers’ money, with Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper saying: “This is just incredible. The Tories’ have wasted an astronomical £290 million of taxpayers’ money on a failing scheme which hasn’t sent a single asylum seeker to Rwanda.

“How many more blank cheques will Rishi Sunak write before the Tories come clean about this scheme being a total farce?”

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John McDonnell MP: ‘Rwanda deportation scheme is an appalling act of inhumanity’

Figures show that the cost of the scheme has spiralled to £290 million, despite the fact that not a single flight has taken off to the east African country.

Labour MP John McDonnell has slammed the Rwanda deportation scheme as an ‘appalling act of inhumanity’, as the government made clear its intention to push ahead with the policy despite the Supreme Court ruling that it was unlawful.

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McDonnell has called the bill the ‘most bizarre & brutal legislation we have seen in years’, adding: “Bizarre by arguing that making a law that says Rwanda is safe can change the reality of all the evidence pointing to the opposite. Brutal by forcing refugees into more insecurity & potential danger.”

He told LFF today that the deportation scheme was ‘an appalling act of inhumanity.’

He said: “The massive cost of the Rwanda scheme demonstrates how much the Tories are willing to spend on brutalising people who have already endured such hardship and human suffering in their flight to secure safety and security. It’s an appalling act of inhumanity.”

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Yet more bus services will be coming back into public ownership

A recent poll for LFF found that 67% of the public want to see buses in public ownership.

After the failures of privatisation, yet more bus services are expected to be brought back under public control.

The Mirror reports that ‘moves are afoot for local authorities to regain powers for setting fares and routes. Areas seeking change include West Yorkshire, where a consultation ends a month today with a decision due in March.’

A recent poll for LFF found that 67% of the public want to see buses in public ownership.

Greater Manchester was the first English region to take back ownership of its bus services. The Mayor Greater Manchester praised the move earlier this year. He said: “For nearly 40 years we have seen worsening services and plummeting passenger numbers on our buses.

“We’ve had to reckon with a deregulated bus network that cuts vital services that connect communities to jobs, hospitals and opportunities on a whim – leaving local leaders with limited budgets to pick up the tab to keep these routes alive.

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Shocking chart shames Britain on child poverty record

The report compiled by UNICEF compared relative income poverty rates, which means the proportion of people who fall below a threshold relative to the income of the average person in the population.

A shocking chart produced by UNICEF shows the UK’s appalling record on child poverty, with the country having the worst rise in child poverty between 2012 and 2019 out of 39 of the world’s richest countries.

The UK has seen a 20% increase in child poverty since 2014 – the steepest rise among the 39 wealthiest OECD & EU nations. With the UK at the bottom of the table, Iceland was next worst with a significantly lower rise of 11%, while France had a 10.4% rise.

Other countries meanwhile had cut their child poverty rates, with Poland topping the table after cutting its child poverty rate by 37.6%, with Slovenia achieving a 31.4% reduction.

The report compiled by UNICEF compared relative income poverty rates, which means the proportion of people who fall below a threshold relative to the income of the average person in the population.

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Around a million children in the UK are living in destitution – with harmful consequences for their development

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spixel/Shutterstock

Emma Louise Gorman, University of Westminster

Millions of people in the UK are unable to meet their most basic physical needs: to stay warm, dry, clean and fed. This is known as destitution.

Recent analysis from charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) estimates that around 3.8 million people in the UK experienced destitution at some point during 2022. This is a 61% increase since 2019 – and a 148% increase since 2017.

Living in destitution means severe material hardship. The JRF’s 2022 survey of crisis service users in the UK found that 61% reported going without food in the month before the survey. They often put other needs, such as accommodation or feeding their children, over feeding themselves.

About half of the people surveyed were not able to afford adequate clothing and basic necessities, such as toiletries. Many talked of living in insecure and low quality housing.

One particularly alarming aspect of these most recent statistics is the steep increase in the number of children living in destitution. In 2022, around 1 million children lived in households who experienced destitution. This is an increase of 88% since the charity’s corresponding 2019 study, and a 186% increase since the 2017 study.

Impact on children

Destitution causes immediate suffering. But for these children, this experience of hardship at a young age will have consequences that last throughout their lives. There is little doubt that both money and environment (housing quality, parental mental health and nutrition, for example) contribute to inequalities in child development. Both of these factors are affected by living in destitution.

When children reach the age of three, stark differences are already evident between those who live in poverty and those who do not. Children from more well-off families have better developed skills in both cognitive tasks, such as understanding basic concepts like colours, letters, numbers and shapes, as well as socio-emotional skills, such as self-control and resilience.

Other factors that are important in shaping children’s skills include housing quality and parental mental health.

Inequalities so early in life can compound and widen over time. These differences between the disadvantaged and the better off can be seen in educational achievement, health and criminal activity.

These types of inequalities were also exacerbated by the pandemic. While pupils everywhere missed out on education, these learning losses were not equally distributed: young people from lower socio-economic background fell further behind.

Despite large increases in funding for the early-year sectors, socio-economic inequalities in child development have not generally narrowed, particularly in recent years.

And now, the sharp increase in the share of children living in destitution does not paint a optimistic picture for the future.

Making a difference

However, many of these issues can be changed by government policy. For example, we know that being hungry at school makes it difficult to concentrate and learn. Measures that address hunger, then, can make a difference. Analysis of a trial of breakfast clubs in English schools, which offered free breakfast to disadvantaged children aged six and seven, found that the free breakfast lead to the equivalent of two months’ extra progress in reading, writing and maths across the course of one year.

Research has shown that many early interventions – such as high quality childcare and education programmes for at-risk children – can have long-lasting positive effects. From an economic perspective, acting early to lift children out of poverty and improve their home and learning environments can be a cost-effective way of helping in the long run, both for individuals as well as wider society.

Another option would be reform of the benefits system to make sure families have enough money to live. In the 2022 Joseph Rowntree Foundation survey of people who used crisis centres, 72% did receive social security benefits – but were still destitute.

This rise in children living in household experiencing destitution must be given serious attention. Successive governments claim to hold upward social mobility as a important goal – that is, the ability of people to move up the economic and social ladder, regardless of their own upbringing and social background. Reducing destitution would not only benefit children right now, but would help them throughout life.The Conversation

Emma Louise Gorman, Principal Research Fellow, Centre for Employment Research, University of Westminster

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingAround a million children in the UK are living in destitution – with harmful consequences for their development

Free school meals scheme extended to every primary school pupil in London

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/free-school-meals-scheme-extended-to-every-primary-school-pupil-in-london

THE Mayor of London unveiled an emergency scheme today to extend free school meals to every primary school pupil in the capital for one year.

Sadiq Khan said the one-off £130m programme, which comes into effect from September, is an effort to help struggling households amid the cost-of-living crisis.

Funded by extra business rates income, it is estimated the move will help about 270,000 primary school pupils and save families in London about £440 per child over the year.

Currently, households in England receiving universal credit must earn less than £7,400 a year before benefits and after tax to qualify for free school meals.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/free-school-meals-scheme-extended-to-every-primary-school-pupil-in-london

Continue ReadingFree school meals scheme extended to every primary school pupil in London

New Statesman: When David Cameron became Tory leader, he wanted to end child poverty. Now he just wants to stop measuring it

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New Statesman: When David Cameron became Tory leader, he wanted to end child poverty. Now he just wants to stop measuring it

Now you see it…  Now you don’t.  The government’s rustled up a party trick for the kids this Christmas. They’re going to make 3.7 million of them disappear.

Britain’s children aren’t going anywhere, of course, particularly those who are growing up poor. But with a legislative sleight of hand, the government plans to quietly give up on the targets to end child poverty enshrined (with cross-party support) in the Child Poverty Act 2010.

And with it, they’re hoping to magic away any mention of child poverty at all. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission will become the Social Mobility Commission. The Child Poverty Act will become the Life Chances Act.

All this is more than a little politically convenient.  Apart from a solitary BBC Today programme interview with Iain Duncan Smith last year, which left presenter Evan Davis audibly flabbergasted, not even the Government claims it is on track to meet the child poverty targets.

Indeed, the latest available projections, from the Resolution Foundation, warn child poverty will rise from 2.3m children to 3.3m by 2020 – a figure that will be even higher once the poverty-producing impact of the Summer Budget and the Autumn Statement is totted up.

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I suppose there may be a few chimneys left for them to sweep and the poverty will keep them small enough.

Continue ReadingNew Statesman: When David Cameron became Tory leader, he wanted to end child poverty. Now he just wants to stop measuring it