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Government to scrap legal requirements to end child poverty Government to scrap legal requirements to end child poverty
(35 minutes later)
Legal requirements to lift children out of relative poverty are to be abolished as the government changes the way it measures the problem, the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, has announced. The government is to scrap its child poverty target and replace it with a new duty to report levels of educational attainment, worklessness and addiction, rather than relative material disadvantage, the work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith said today.
Duncan Smith will bring forward legislation to remove the official measure, which defines a child as being in poverty if it is in a household with less than 60% of the national median average income. The old target set up by Tony Blair, based on the percentage of households below average income, will continue to to be published as a government statistic but will no longer be seen as a target.
In a statement to MPs, he said that the measure was deeply flawed because it meant that the official measure of child poverty could be reduced by a slump in the economy or increased by a hike in state pensions. The new measures were largely worked out by Duncan Smith with the Liberal Democrat schools minister, David Laws, in the coalition government, but were shelved when they were blocked by the chancellor, George Osborne, who was worried about the politics of reforming the system.
The 60% target will be replaced by a statutory duty for ministers to report regularly on measures such as educational attainment and numbers of children in workless households, which the Duncan Smith said were some of the key indicators of a child’s life chances. The downgrading of the existing target comes ahead of a big cut in tax credits expected in next week’s budget as part of a drive to cut the welfare budget.
The long-expected change came as the four UK children’s commissioners joined forces to say that child poverty rates across the UK were “unacceptably high” and urge the government to hold back from benefit cuts which could push more young people into poverty. The cuts to tax credits would have made it even harder to reach the old child poverty target by 2020, the target date set by Labour and the end point of this parliament.
Although some MPs welcomed the attempt to focus on the root causes of poverty, the removal of the material income target was denounced by Labour as the obituary notice for compassionate Conservatism.
Duncan Smith told MPs: “Worklessness measures will identify the proportion of children living in workless households and the proportion of children in long-term workless households.
“The educational attainment measures will focus on GCSE attainment for all pupils and for particularly disadvantaged pupils.”
Duncan Smith argues the measures set by Tony Blair are a poor measure of poverty since families can fall or go above the relative poverty line for reasons that have little to do with their material wealth.
“We know in households with unstable relationships, where debt and addiction destabilise families, where parents lack employment skills, where children just aren’t ready to start school, these children don’t have the same chances in life as others. It is self evident.
“They cannot break out of that cycle of disadvantage. We are currently developing these measures right now – family breakdown, problem debt and drug and alcohol dependency – and we will report each year on these life chances as well.”
Duncan Smith said the Child Poverty and Social Mobility Commission, chaired by Alan Milburn, the former Labour cabinet minister, will be renamed as the Social Mobility Commission.
Duncan Smith has been given the political leeway to make the reforms after the annual child poverty statistics published by government last week did not show the widely predicted drop.
Duncan Smith said: “Governments will no longer just focus on moving families above a poverty line, instead we want to focus on making a meaningful change to children’s lives by extending opportunity for all so both they and their children can escape from the cycle of poverty and improve their life chances.
“This process marks a shift, I hope, from solely measuring inputs of expenditure to measuring the outcomes of children-focused policy.”
Duncan Smith said: “The problem with the statutory framework set around the relative income measure has become, I think, to all people, anyone who wants to be honest about this, all too apparent.
“At 60% of median income, if you sit below the line you are said to be poor, if you sit above it you are not. Asking government to raise everyone above that set percentage, I think, has led often to unintended consequences for good reasons.
“Most of all, to poorly targeted spending, pumping money into the welfare system focusing more often on inputs rather than what the outcomes meant.”
Duncan Smith cited “massive spikes” in tax credit spending ahead of the 2005 and 2010 elections. He said between 2002 and 2010, spending on tax credits “more than doubled” to £258 billion, while overall welfare spending was up 60% in real terms.
The shadow work minister Stephen Timms quoted comments from David Cameron in 2006, when he said: “Poverty is relative and those who pretend otherwise are wrong.”
“The prime minister promised that a government he led would – I quote – ‘act on relative poverty’. Why is that promise being broken?” the acting shadow work and pensions secretary said.
Related: Iain Duncan Smith among 19 MPs to have official credit card suspendedRelated: Iain Duncan Smith among 19 MPs to have official credit card suspended
Duncan Smith said: “Eradicating child poverty is an absolute priority for this government, and I have consistently argued that it is not enough to tackle the symptoms without also tackling the underlying causes. Child Poverty Action Group said: “Today’s statement isn’t about strengthening efforts to end child poverty but about burying the failure of the government’s child poverty approach. And with more cuts coming down the line, child poverty is set to rise.
“The measures announced today are the foundation of a new, comprehensive way of addressing poverty and reflect our conviction that work is the best route out of poverty. “Two thirds of poor children are in working families – it’s unclear whether these children will be counted as poor in the future.”
“Our new approach will drive effective government action by focusing attention on making meaningful change to children’s life chances.”
The relative poverty measure was enshrined in the Child Poverty Act passed by the Labour prime minister Gordon Brown in 2010, which required the government to eradicate child poverty by 2020.
However, it has come under fire from Duncan Smith, who told MPs that it resulted in “unintended consequences”, as action was focused on lifting children above the 60% line rather than on tackling the root causes of their disadvantage.
As well as educational attainment and workless households, ministers will also be required to report on measures of family breakdown, problem debt and drug and alcohol addiction, which also hold back children’s life chances, he said.
The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, chaired by former Labour minister Alan Milburn, is to be renamed the Social Mobility Commission, with a remit to ensure independent scrutiny and advocacy of ways to boost people’s life prospects.
Labour’s acting shadow work and pensions secretary, Stephen Timms, said Duncan Smith’s announcement amounted to “the obituary note for compassionate conservatism ... the death knell for any idea that his party might one day be a party for working people”.
Timms told MPs: “Their manifesto said they would work to reduce child poverty, instead they have decided to change the definition.”