Ending Child Poverty: a manifesto for success

There are still nearly 4 million children living in poverty in Britain today. The Government has promised to eradicate child poverty by 2020 and we cannot afford to fail.

In today’s difficult economic climate, our manifesto calls for immediate action to help employers protect jobs. The income safety net must be mended; and greater use made of universal benefits in tandem with progressive taxation, rather than over-reliance on means testing and accumulation of excessive wealth at the top.

Investment is needed in affordable childcare, decent homes and public services that successfully reach those who need them most. Policy should move from simply putting employment first, to considering children’s needs above all. Barriers to work and in-work poverty must be addressed too, with an excessively complex and punitive system transformed into a system of positive entitlement to the support individual parents need to gain and keep decent jobs.

It is both morally right and economically sensible to make these investments. Many of them support employment, and they all support family security, which is not only vital to lifting children out of poverty today, but vital to our future economic security.

As we look ahead to the years between now and 2020, we know that our country will be judged not just on whether we can rebuild an ailing economy, but on whether we build it as a fair economy: an economy that makes child poverty a thing of the past.

We hope you support the calls we make in this manifesto – please use the email sign up below and together we can ensure child poverty is ended.

Kate Green OBE
Child Poverty Action Group

Download Ending Child Poverty: a manifesto for success

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Press releases

• Government must take final step to complete progress to 2010 child poverty target
  (18 March 2009)
• Expert group launches manifesto on 10th anniversary of child poverty pledge
  (18 March 2009)

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