UNIVERSALLY DISCREDITED
Charity’s hard-hitting report reveals 1million children face being driven into poverty by hated Tory benefit
TORY austerity could drive a million more children into poverty, a hard-hitting new report warns.
Experts say the impact of Therasa May’s cuts and the controversial new Universal Credit benefit have ripped apart the promise to make work pay.
And the impact of years of cutbacks will most hurt poorer families and children, including from working households.
The devastating report, published yesterday by Child Poverty Action Group and the Institute for Public Policy Research, is the latest evidence the UK Government are creating an austerity generation across Britain.
It goes even further than a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies last week which predicted benefit cuts would plunge 400,000 more kids into absolute poverty in the UK.
CPAG chief executive Alison Garnham said: “Since 2010, rather than investing in our children, government policy has been creating an austerity generation whose childhoods and life chances will be scarred by a decade of political decisions to stop protecting their living standards.
“The promise of increased rewards from work made to families with children under the new Universal Credit benefit has been broken. The Universal Credit we see today is not the Universal Credit that was sold to everyone a few years ago.”
SNP MP Neil Gray said the Tory claim to make work pay “lies in tatters” and called for them to halt the disastrous rollout of Universal Credit “before even more households are driven into hardship and destitution”. A UK Department for Work and Pensions spokesman claimed: “We’re committed to supporting families and there are now 200,000 fewer children living in poverty than in 2010.
“This report assumes that people won’t take any steps to improve their lives, which we know is untrue. Unlike the old system, Universal Credit rewards those working more hours.”
Promise of rewards from work under UC has been broken GARNHAM