\n<\/p>\n
Celebrities, MPs and children\u2019s charities are among dozens of signatories to an open letter ramping up pressure on the government to set targets for reducing child poverty in the UK.<\/p>\n
The actor Emilia Clarke, the broadcaster Chris Packham and the presenter George Clarke have put their names to the letter, coordinated by the Big Issue founder John Bird, stating that the government\u2019s reluctance to set binding child poverty reduction targets has \u201crung alarm bells\u201d.<\/p>\n
Leading anti-poverty and children\u2019s charities including the National Children\u2019s Bureau, Child Poverty Action Group, Amnesty UK, Barnardo\u2019s and the food bank charity Trussell have all backed the call, as well as MPs and peers representing Labour, Greens and the SNP.<\/p>\n
\u201cQuite simply, we\u2019re worried that the government does not want its homework marked when it comes to child poverty,\u201d the letter reads. \u201cIt\u2019s crucial the government gets the child poverty strategy right. This is a landmark opportunity to set a truly transformative agenda for long-term change, but in an increasingly challenging economic climate there is every reason to worry warm words will not translate into tangible progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cTargets will provide much-needed benchmarks to track progress and keep driving action forward. The government\u2019s reticence so far has left us worried they\u2019re looking to dodge this vital layer of scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter is a result of mounting concern in the charity sector that the child poverty strategy will not include targets for the number of children Labour wishes to pull out of poverty during the parliament.<\/p>\n
<\/span>John Bird coordinated the open letter.<\/span> Photograph: PA Images\/Alamy<\/p>\n Earlier this year Lord Bird, a crossbench peer, proposed an amendment to the children\u2019s wellbeing and schools bill that would place a duty on the government to set legally binding child poverty targets.<\/p>\n The government rejected it at committee stage in June, with the education minister Jacqui Smith arguing that targets would \u201crisk adversely narrowing the focus of effort to moving the children closest to the poverty line over it\u201d.<\/p>\n Bird will reintroduce the amendment when the bill returns for its report stage in the House of Lords later in the year.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n He said: \u201cWe cannot accept rhetoric in place of real change \u2013 we must demand sustained, legislative action. Poverty reduction targets will hold Westminster\u2019s feet to the fire and stop delays like we\u2019ve seen with the long-promised child poverty strategy, which we continue to wait for nearly 16 months into Labour\u2019s time in government.\u201d<\/p>\n The child poverty strategy was previously delayed from spring to autumn 2025 and is now expected to be published around the time of the November budget, which the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has signalled will include an overhaul of the two-child benefit limit.<\/p>\n Charities have raised concern over suggestions the policy could be replaced with a new tapered system, and on Thursday the Resolution Foundation said half-measures would have little or no meaningful effect on overall child poverty rates.<\/p>\n According to the Child Poverty Action Group, on the current trajectory a further 100,000 children a year are set to fall into poverty, with nearly 5 million expected to live in poverty by 2029.<\/p>\n Child poverty reduction targets were introduced in Scotland under its 2017 Child Poverty Act with the aim of ensuring that less than 10% of children are in relative poverty by 2030. However, its interim targets for 2023-24 were not met and there was no enforcement mechanism if the targets were missed.<\/p>\n A government spokesperson said: \u201cEvery child, no matter their background, deserves the best start in life. That\u2019s why our child poverty taskforce will publish an ambitious strategy to tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are investing \u00a3500m in children\u2019s development through the rollout of Best Start family hubs, extending free school meals and ensuring the poorest don\u2019t go hungry in the holidays through a new \u00a31bn crisis support package.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Celebrities, MPs and children\u2019s charities are among dozens of signatories to an open letter ramping up pressure on the government to set targets for reducing child poverty in the UK. The actor Emilia Clarke, the broadcaster Chris Packham and the presenter George Clarke have put their names to the letter, coordinated by the Big Issue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[634,983,681,166,558,2295,12442,620,3895,1415],"class_list":{"0":"post-31716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-call","9":"tag-charities","10":"tag-child","11":"tag-children","12":"tag-government","13":"tag-poverty","14":"tag-reduction","15":"tag-set","16":"tag-stars","17":"tag-targets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}