Poorer families missing out on free care as race divide grows

THE “school readiness” gap between five-year-olds from richer and poorer backgrounds is widening, according to research published today.

A report by the Sutton Trust raises concerns that the Government’s policy of providing 30 hours of free childcare to families with two working parents is failing to improve social mobility. Families with parents not in work are eligible for only 15 hours of free childcare.

The report found that the school readiness gap between disadvantaged children and their peers had been slowly decreasing from 2007, but that progress has now stalled.

It concluded: “The policy to provide working families with 30 hours of free childcare is regressive, with the majority of the increased government funding supporting better-off families, and parents on benefits seeing little change to their incomes.” There were already fears that the closure of nurseries would widen social inequalities further because disadvantaged children would be worst affected.

There were also warnings today that the pandemic has deepened London’s already “stark” inequalities.

A study by the Social Metrics Commission revealed BAME households were disproportionately exposed to job losses and pay cuts. The commission’s annual report found that nearly half of black African-Caribbean households were living in poverty, compared with just under one in five white families.

And professor Kevin Fenton, regional director of Public Health England, told London Health Board: “We now know that [Covid-19] has in fact worsened [inequalities], either through the direct or indirect impacts of the disease.”

IT’S sadly no surprise that London’s most vulnerable people are being hit the hardest by the health and economic effects of coronavirus — but that doesn’t mean we should tolerate it. The evidence is mounting. As Professor Kevin Fenton, a regional director of PHE, says, “Covid-19 didn’t create inequalities but it has certainly shone a light on them” — and on top of that it has made them worse. One report out today shows that BAME households have been affected disproportionately by job losses and pay cuts which have followed the pandemic. Another this week shows that during lockdown many women and girls found it impossible to get hold of or afford sanitary products. As we start to rebuild our economy, we will fail if we don’t take serious and speedy action to help those who have suffered the most.