The Labour Party has launched efforts to lift roughly 550,000 children in the United Kingdom out of poverty.
Under the new plan, families will get access to welfare payments for more than two children starting from April next year. The previous policy, which was brought by the Tories in 2017, plunged more than 1.7 million kids under the poverty line, which is equivalent to roughly one in nine children.
Labour Party's Plan To Address Child Poverty
In 2025, an estimated 4.5 million kids in the UK were living in poverty, with 2 million in households that were not able to afford various essentials, such as food, housing, and heating. Due to this, the Labour Party's commitment has been warmly welcomed by parents, case workers, charities, and many others.
The major part of the plan is scrapping the benefits cap, which provides the most significant effect. Other measures include making it easier for parents who are receiving Universal Credit to get help paying upfront childcare costs, more free school meals, and many others, according to The Guardian.
It also includes a $10.5 million pledge that aims to get more families out of bed and breakfasts. More than 2,000 families in June were living in this sort of emergency housing for more than six weeks, despite it being unlawful.
On the other hand, one of the major criticisms of the plan is that the UK government has not yet committed to a binding or statutory target. This is a reduction of poverty by X percent by X year, which Prime Minister Keir Starmer said is a "moral mission" for his government.
Helping Struggling Families
Opinion polls suggest that the two-child benefit limit, which was introduced by George Osborne as chancellor and applies to children who were born since April 2017, is relatively popular. Many believe that people should not have children if they are not able to afford to provide for them properly, the Independent reported.
Despite this, there are actually many reasons why larger families struggle financially, including breakdown of relationships, illness or death, and career loss, among others. Starmer also emphasized that three-quarters of children who are in poverty belong to working families.
Secretary of State for Science and Technology, Liz Kendall, pointed out that the Labour Party's strategy has been written with experts in child poverty engaged throughout the process. Many consider it an ambitious plan that seeks to provide more assistance than any in a single parliament in history, as per Labour List.
