Next government urged to scrap two-child benefit cap and work towards halving child poverty

The Centre for Young Lives has published a plan for the next Government outlining what it believes are priorities for the next government to tackle the biggest challenges facing children in the UK, problems which it says have had ‘little air-time during the General Election campaign’.

The priorities include:

• Abolishing the two-child benefit cap.
• Establishment of a No.10 Poverty Unit tasked with halving child poverty by 2029.
• Expanding free school meals to all children from families in receipt of Universal Credit by the end of the Parliament.
• Introduction of a one-off £1bn children and young people’s mental health recovery programme, part-financed by a levy on social media companies and mobile phone providers.
• Commissioning an independent review into the impact of smart phones and social media on children’s health and development to provide the ‘strongest evidence based’ for an updated Online Safety Act.
• Reform of Ofsted inspections.
• Introduction of a register of children not in school – something promised by the Government in April 2019, but never delivered.
• Reduction of autism assessment waiting lists by running autism and SEN assessments in primary schools.

Anne Longfield, executive chair of the Centre for Young Lives, said, ‘In over four decades of working and campaigning to improve support and help for children and families, I can’t remember a less impressive Parliament than the one which has just dissolved. Half-hearted reforms to services and sticking plaster investment have failed to meet the scale of the challenges brought about by austerity, the Covid pandemic, and the cost of living crisis.

Our levels of child poverty are shocking and shameful. We should be mortified that a country as wealthy as ours has so many schools with food banks and clothes banks.

‘Too many of our children are falling through the gaps. A new Government, whoever is elected, offers the chance of a reset and a new approach to boosting opportunities for all children, wherever they grow up and whatever their background.

‘Today, we are setting out ten policy proposals for the next Government, whichever party forms it, to help them on their way. Tackling these issues - and there are many more that could have been added to the list – is a vital and urgent task for our country’s future prosperity.

‘I am always optimistic that with the right amount of political will and a clear sense of purpose that Government can pull down the barriers that hold back many of our children and begin to turn around their lives. These ten proposals are a good place for them to start.’