On Friday MPs will have an opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of 4 million children growing up in poverty in Britain. Two thirds of those children have at least one parent in work. In the face of high child poverty rates – and the threat that these will rise sharply in coming years – renewed action to end child poverty has never been so important. We must measure our progress if we are to work towards the goal of ending child poverty in the UK. A child poverty target, and a strategy to meet that target, is required to focus minds and coordinate policies across government. The private member’s bill being introduced by Dan Jarvis MP will do just that. We support this bill, which deserves the backing of MPs from all parties.
Alison Garnham
Chief executive, CPAG (Child Poverty Action Group)
Dr Sam Royston
Chair, End Child Poverty coalition
Paul Nowak
Deputy general secretary, TUC
Professor Neena Modi
President, Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health
Gerri McAndrew
Chief executive, Buttle UK
Simon Hopkins
Chief executive, Turn2Us
Kevin Courtney
General secretary, NUT
Niall Cooper
Director, Church Action on Poverty
Dalia Ben-Galim
Director of policy, advice and communications, Gingerbread
Cheryl Ward
Chief executive, Family Fund
Rev Paul Nicolson
Taxpayers Against Poverty
Joanna Kennedy
Chief executive, Z2K
Andy Elvin
Chief executive, TACT
Dr Wanda Wyporska
Executive director, The Equality Trust
Purnima Tanuku
Chief executive, National Day Nurseries Association
Dr Carol Homden
Chief executive, Coram
Irene Audain
Chief executive, Scottish Out of School Care Network
Catriona Williams
Chief executive, Children in Wales
Arvinda Gohil
Chief executive, Community Links
Amanda Batten
Chief executive, Contact a Family
Jamie Burton
Chair, Just Fair
John McDonald
Director, Family Holiday Association
Albert Persaud
Director, Centre for Applied Research and Evaluation – International Foundation
• I’ve been calling on the government to shift its emphasis to dismantling poverty, rather than maintaining people in it. I’m a bit of a one-question man and I’ve been tailoring my interventions in parliament towards preventative action on poverty. But departments aren’t working to help mass dismantlement, as last week’s child poverty warning from the head of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health demonstrates all too well (Poverty in the UK jeopardising children’s health, 26 January). Point-scoring on poverty is the way that much of the debate goes, often with the poor caught in between. Neither invested in, nor supported, to rid themselves of the cancers of poverty. People are left in poverty’s waiting room, where democracy doesn’t get a look in. For if you live in poverty, you’re outside of society, unable to choose because your “choices” are narrowed down to almost nothing. And that, surely, should spur on a revolution in our thinking so that the government gets it right, communities get it right, and we get it right. Poverty is preventable and the solutions are out there.
John Bird
Crossbencher, House of Lords
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