Cherie Blair leads drive to get 1m children out of poverty in Britain

A NEW campaign is calling for a “united effort from every corner of society” to pull a million children out of poverty in the UK by 2030.

Human-rights lawyer Cherie Blair is backing the call, which is supported by various children’s charities.

Government figures showed the number of children living in poverty across the UK had hit a record high – an estimated 4.3 million children in households in relative low income after housing costs in the year to March 2023.

This was up from 4.22 million the previous year and above the previous high of 4.28 million in the year to March 2020.

The latest figure was the highest since comparable records began in 2002/03.

The new campaign from those behind the Children’s Prosperity Plan is urging policy changes it said could make a real difference.

These include scrapping the twochild limit that restricts support in Universal Credit and tax credits to two children in a family; abolishing the benefit cap that limits the amount of support a working-age household can receive from social security and reducing the maximum deductions of debts from Universal Credit from 25 per cent to 15 per cent. Mrs Blair, wife of former Labour prime minister Tony Blair, said: “Achieving this requires more than just policy changes, it demands a united effort from every corner of society.

“From Government bodies to private-sector champions, from local communities to international partners, we must all come together.”

Former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield, who is also supporting the campaign, said: “We should be ashamed at the levels of child poverty in Britain, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and at the lack of action to reduce it.”

She said the social security system was “penalising some of the poorest families” and hailed the proposals in the campaign as sensible ways to “lift many children out of poverty”.

A Government spokesperson said: “There are 1.1 million fewer people living in absolute poverty compared to 2010, including 100,000 children and our £108bn cost-of-living support package prevented 1.3 million people falling into poverty in 2022/23.

“Children are five times less likely to experience poverty if they live in a household where all adults work.”