We must speak up to stop child poverty being ignored
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IF you missed Rossendale Council leader Alyson Barnes’ column in last week’s Free Press, I’d urge you to dig it out of the recycling bin (assuming you’ve not had your recycling bins taken off you!) and give it a read.
In a world where we only ever seem to talk about Brexit or the Tory Party leadership, issues such as the one Cllr Barnes’ focuses on are in danger of being lost. The issue? That according to the charity End Child Poverty, 6,000 children in Rossendale are classed as living in poverty.
The data suggests 24% of children in Rossendale live in poverty before housing costs are factored in and this rises to 34% after housing costs are factored in.
According to the Children’s Society, a child is said to be living in poverty when they are living in a family with an income below 60% of the UK’s average after adjusting for family size.
For a family of four, that can mean living - after essential costs like housing and heating are factored in - on £ 15 per person, per day.
That’s £ 15 per person has to include clothes, food, transport, and so on.
We perhaps shouldn’t be surprised by this data, horrifying as it is.
We know foodbank usage has rocketed in recent years and Rossendale is no exception.
Indeed, there are several organisations now providing such services in the borough, and RAFT, perhaps the best known foodbank organisation around here, talks about issuing hundreds of meals a week.
Signs asking for donations of nappies and baby food should break our hearts - but it’s what happens as a result of seeing such stark statistics which should bother us more.
All too often, when data doesn’t suit politicians - in this case, a Conservative government - they will seek to discredit or challenge the figures.
But even if the methodology is tweaked or change, it won’t alter the fact that too many young people are growing up in poverty.
There are direct links between poverty and attainment at school, health into the future, risk of bullying at school and growing up feeling unsafe.
Poverty in childhood has the potential to blight lives.
So what can be done here in Rossendale?
Well it’s worth saying that Rossendale is a long way from being the worst for child poverty - 47% are in Blackburn, followed close behind by Manchester.
And it’s not down to Rossendale Council to solve poverty.
It should be there to empty the bins, run the parks and leisure centres, and provide everyday services.
But if our local councillors don’t speak up, and speak out, this feels like it will be an issue which gets ignored.
Lancashire County Council’s recent cuts have hit disabled transport subsidies, support for troubled families and funding for police community support officers on public transport - all decisions which might hide out of sight, but hit the most vulnerable, including some of the most impoverished, hardest.
Wouldn’t it be a great start if our local council - Rossendale - set up a committee to examine the problem in the round? Not just what it can do, but involve LCC, involve any organisation with an interest in this issue - and which is prepared to do what it can to solve it.
Cllr Barnes in raising this issue has shown it’s important to Rossendale Council.
Will our local county councillors feel the same?
Data is just data at the end of the day, it can’t change lives.
A determination to do something about what the data is telling us, could.