Nursery World - Editor’s view

We need to ensure we preserve our sense of horror at the effects of poverty on the growing number of families with young children

The latest figures on levels of child poverty are shocking indeed, although it seems that our response has become almost accepting in the face of continuing stories about how desperate things are for many families in this country.

There are now 4.1 million children living below the poverty line, with more than half of those aged under five.

What is more, 70 per cent of these children live in working households – so much for the idea that it is ‘lazy’, unemployed parents causing problems rather than the ‘hard-working’ families beloved of the Government.

Yet the four-year freeze on children’s benefits will cast even more children into poverty in the next few years.

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