The government can change the definition of ‘child poverty’, but it won’t change the reality

Felicity Dowling writes on how the budget will affect children.

When Osborne makes his cuts, children will be hit hard. That’s right. Children. The children of workers and the poor. Not his children, or those of other very rich people. No, it will be our children. One in four children in the UK. They will be damaged. All the reports and academic studies say so. The memories of those who grew up in poverty say so.

The UK Children’s Commissioners’ report, recently handed to the United Nations, said: “Reductions to household income for poorer children as a result of tax, transfer and social security benefit changes have led to food and fuel poverty, and the sharply increased use of crisis food bank provision by families” and “The best interests of children were not central to the development of these policies and children’s views were not sought.”

Iain Duncan Smith, though, said: “I believe that the best route out of poverty is work – it provides purpose, responsibility, and role models for our children”. He said “I am announcing that we will bring forward legislation to remove the measures and targets in the Child Poverty Act, as well as the other duties and provision.”

The government of this country is so determined to plough ahead with its policies, so sure it will not be stopped, that it is changing the definition of poverty so as not to be held accountable, but doing so blatantly and without shame. Its alternative policy narrative is one which spreads blame and “otherness” making these children unlike “our own”.

Most children in poverty have do working parents, so IDS is wrong. Poor pay and the maternity pay gap are the issues and it is time these issues became live in the trade union movement. The cuts will fall harshly, not on charitable tax relief for on public schools, but on the working poor.

We must make children’s situation visible in the fight for decent living standards in this, one of the richest countries in the world. Child poverty is growing in the developed world as a consequence of Austerity policies.

How many children in Britain are in poverty? “3.5 million children live in poverty in the United Kingdom today. That is equivalent to 27 per cent, more than one in four. There are even more serious concentrations of child poverty at a local level: in 100 local wards between 50 and 70 per cent of children are growing up in poverty.”

“The tax, benefit and spending changes the Government is pursuing will hit households with children hardest. These make up a third of households, according to the Children’s Commissioner for England, but will suffer around two thirds of the cuts.”

“It is the poorest in society who are bearing the brunt of austerity measures. Unless the issue of child poverty is addressed, millions of children will never achieve their full potential. Teachers are only too aware of the problems of poverty and, frankly, deprivation that face our pupils.”

Why does it happen in Britain? There is child poverty worldwide, even in the developed world. The UK had 25.6 percent, Greece 40.5%, the US 32 and Norway only 5%. It’s not an intractable problem.

“The poorest fifth of UK households have an average income of just $9,530, much lower than those in Germany ($13,381), France ($12,653), Denmark ($12, 183) or the Netherlands ($11,274). High Pay Centre director Deborah Hargreaves said: “Most people think our living standards in the UK are similar to economies like France and Germany, but being poor in the UK is more like being poor in the former Soviet Bloc than in Western Europe.”

A new report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) shows that “2.6 million children have sunk below the poverty line in the world’s most affluent countries since the crisis first broke in 2008, bringing the total number of children in the developed world living in poverty to an estimated 76.5 million.”

Growth in child poverty is not inevitable. It is a result of government policy. “In 18 countries, child poverty actually fell, sometimes markedly. Australia, Chile, Finland, Norway, Poland and the Slovak Republic reduced levels by around 30%.”

Child poverty in the global South has also been affected by Austerity/restructuring and we will return to that issue in another article.

On every indicator, poor children’s life chances are damaged by poverty and this government and the previous coalition have made life worse. What we face is not only shortage of money but stress and anxiety, proximity to dangerous traffic and fumes, poor housing and homelessness, poor birth outcomes and chronic ill health, poor educational opportunities and outcomes, less chance to access the outdoors and the cultural life of society.
Those children unfortunate enough to be raised by the state are not safe either. Those in care are massively more likely to end up in youth custody.

Should they end up in youth custody, pity help them, for the outcomes are appalling. Many are held miles from home, many should have mental health care and more than 66% will reoffend. Spain has proven youth custody can be a positive, nurturing and helpful experience.

Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) have been hit badly by cuts, outsourcing and “commissioning”. Acute mental health services for young people have been damaged such that children in psychosis have been held in police cells.

Cuts in legal aid for family cases make this process still more hurtful to children.

The youth services in many areas have been damaged. These services where the first to pick up on organised grooming and one of the few services to be praised for its work with vulnerable children by the report on Rotherham, yet those services go.

The legal system especially in poor areas, demonises children. Their whole lives can be lived out in exclusion areas where their rights of free movement and association are restricted, where youngsters, especially young boys are demonised and people are often afraid. Machines known as ‘mosquitos’ designed to make unpleasant noises only young ears can hear are deployed to move children and young people on.

In areas where gang culture is a fear, do the police make sure young kids are safe getting home from school? Is this a police priority or does institutional racism and class prejudice push boys into gangs for their own physical safety? The poorest teenagers were hit early with the abolition of Education Maintenance Allowances.
The Sure Start centres were hit very badly and virtually wiped out in many areas.

Two judges in a minority ruling on the benefit cap, challenged the last government stating that they were putting children at risk. “In a dissenting judgment, the deputy president of the supreme court, Lady Hale, said: “The prejudicial effect of the cap is obvious and stark. It breaks the link between benefit and need.”

“Claimants affected by the cap will, by definition, not receive the sums of money which the state deems necessary for them adequately to house, feed, clothe and warm themselves and their children.”

The Children’s Society says over 140,000 children are hit by the cap compared to only 60,000 adults while children are more than seven times more likely to lose out from its effects. “Latest official figures show 55,000 households had their benefits capped in the UK in the first 20 months of the policy, and 45% of these were in London. A third of those families affected had five or more children, while 62% were single parents with children.”

Matthew Reed, the Children’s Society’s chief executive, said at the time of the cap’s announcement that it would be responsible for “putting more children on the breadline”.

The benefit system refuses to fully recognise the caring responsibilities of parents, and sanctions are applied to parents with children. This means children have no source of food money. A staggering 3.5million workers have been stuck on low pay for a decade, according to Unison. The threats to in work benefits will again hit families with children.

Once, in Greece, I walked through a crowd with my then small children, and many of the people, without stopping their conversations, reached out and touched the children on the head or on the cheek, a simple gesture of care. Others stopped to chat and praise the children, the language barrier making small difference, “Kala, kala”. The children complained a little of pinched cheeks, but thrived on the kindness.

In Britain we are less demonstrative, but nevertheless, strangers will step up to help a small child in need. Daily, charities raise much money to help. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends and neighbours, nursery workers and medics go far out of their way to cherish and raise our children. By all that is decent in humanity, people cherish children.

So why then does this government consistently heave the weight of austerity and cuts onto the lives of children in families, mainly from working class communities? Why is it publically acceptable? They know, and we know, that it damages children for life.

Even before these cuts, millions of women are balancing books in their homes and working miracles in keeping children fed, watered, warm and happy on a shoe string wage. That shoe string is now fraying, and further cuts will plunge still more families into stress and anxiety. Everything can work so long as nothing drastic happens, like a washing machine wearing out or a an unexpected bill. For so many there is just no leeway at all.

Inquiry into organised child sex abuse

A sick and shameful history of organised sexual abuse of children in many different institutions by the most powerful is currently being laid bare, the subject of a huge inquiry.

As a public slap in the face to all who want to protect children, to the survivors and the survivors’ families and supporters, the conditions for children today are being made worse by cuts, by keeping social services running on empty and under terrible stress, by short term insecure employment for many who work with children and by recreating the power structures that facilitated the abuse.

Traditionally the children of the ruling elite have been sent off to private boarding schools some of which sexually abused the children, many more emotionally damaged the children; but these brutalised children are then put in charge of our children.

There are reports a plenty about child poverty. The GMB union commissioned a wonderful, detailed study on the health impacts of child poverty. Many social organisations affiliate to worthwhile organisations like End Child Poverty who campaign and try to influence events.

Poor wages are a big part of the problem. The unions need to get into gear, to get Britain a pay rise. Parents and carers, and especially mothers, are often working for poverty wages. The gap between average mother’s earnings per hour and average men’s wages per hour is nearly 36%.

Where is the unions’ response? Why are we not kicking our unions into action?

Media camapigns

This government, and their friends in the media, have developed plenty of hate against benefit claimants, against those whose physical or mental impairments make work difficult or impossible, against the army of carers, against the migrant, against the refugee. The poor are divided into saints and sinners, ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ by popular press and TV shows.

The way many people think is shaped by the media unless there is a conscious effort to resist this. Now the media are turning their fire on to those with more than two children. Having more than two children is a sure sign of fecklessness we are to assume, so the third child can go hungry (as a third child I find that worrying). If we feed the children of the feckless, they will have more children, I presume the hack press will say.

Even before these cuts, millions of women are balancing books in their homes and working miracles in keeping children fed, watered, warm and happy on a shoe string wage. That shoe string is now fraying, and further cuts will plunge still more families into stress and anxiety. Everything can work so long as nothing drastic happens, like a washing machine wearing out or a an unexpected bill. For so many there is just no lee way at all.
Marking children as a personal, individual, responsibility and not a social responsibility is important for the building of the apology for cuts. “But in the Thatcher era there was a real onslaught on the idea that children of all ages are the responsibility of everyone” (Sheila Bowbotham)

Marking certain children as “not ours” helps too. Then every prejudice in our society; race, disability, class, gender orientation, religion, migration status – presses most heavily on children. The inner city child, the Muslim child, the child from the North, the child from the seaside town, the white working class boy – all have been demeaned and negatively stereotyped. Another idea peddled by the Conservatives is that people should not have more than someone on a low wage, even if there is not enough to live on.

How do good people not notice this damage to children?

“When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out ‘stop!'” Brecht

It’s time call out stop, for the children and with their carers. It’s time to make child poverty a real issue in our activism.

Let’s be clear, childhood poverty causes damage to physical and mental health, to emotional resilience, to happiness.

Today those most deeply affected are often counting every penny to get through the week and cannot easily afford to be activists. But it is from this section of society that many activists are coming forward, and necessity will become the mother of invention. “No cause can be won between dinner and tea, and most of us who were married had to work with one hand tied behind us” – so said the early suffragists. We need an activists campaign on this, not charity.

We learn to ignore the children in modern day wars, there was a time when we ignored children in factories. Lets not ignore them this summer. As the school holidays start millions of primary school children, youngsters now receiving a free school lunch, will need to be fed. In areas of intense poverty how do we get food into the children’s tummies? Families already stretched need to find this extra money. Use of food banks by families with children goes up during the school holidays.

We need to make politics and protest real to young people. It’s no good talking about it if we do nothing. “Love kitchens” are good. They set up a cooking stall in the street and give out food to those who need it, taking donations from well-wishers. “Austerity Catering” is good too, where food for events is cooked and prepared but no one pays until everyone has eaten to make sure people don’t go hungry.

If we are to operate among children, we need to have safe guarding in place with clear indications to the children who they can go to, and all activists are very clear on safeguarding arrangements.

This country could afford to eradicate child poverty. Scrapping Trident could have that effect as the Bairns Not Bombs demonstration in Scotland made plain. Yet the government makes a conscious political choice not to do so. Why? Low wages are part of their project, massively reduced public services are part of their project. Indeed, seeing our children go short makes us feel powerless and impotent, strengthening their hand.

But our communities do care. The anger is growing. It is important for people to hear that it is wrong, to hear that it is unnecessary. It really does take a community to raise a child. If it’s left as the responsibility of each parent, grand parent or carer, then children will live on in increasing poverty, We can raise this issue in our activism.

Ending child poverty will happen here in the UK if we can build up the political will. Ending child poverty across the planet is also possible.