Child Poverty measures scrapped by Tories.

Just short of two years ago I wrote an article, published in the Sheffield Star about child poverty. In the article I quoted a strategy report from 2011, published by Sheffield City Council, which stated that poverty is not just about wealth but also about health, community, aspiration and education. At the time of writing the piece a family was classed as living in poverty if the household income was less than 60% of the average wage, £359 per week (by the end of 2013 this had risen to £517). In Sheffield, 27,000 children were judged to be living in child poverty, 24% of the city.

The report also said that certain groups were more likely to live in poverty – ethnic minority families, single parent families and families with more than three children particularly.

One of the wealthier suburbs of Sheffield, Dore has 0% teen pregnancies compared to less well-off Arbourthorne where teen pregnancy was at almost 15%. Less than 8 mile separates the two areas but they are worlds apart in real terms and therefore it is vital that those levels of poverty are measured.

Today work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, announced plans to scrap the current measures claiming they were deeply flawed. The four UK children’s commissioners have urged Mr Duncan Smith to stop his benefits cuts programme and said that the levels of child poverty are unacceptably high.

Duncan Smith insists that ending child poverty is still a priority but he intends to do this by changing the long term chances of those in poor families. He intends to introduce new legislation that focuses on educational attainment and long term worklessness. He said they will also look at causes of poverty such as drug and alcohol dependency and family breakdown.

All very good but we already know from the current measures that those things are all contributors to poverty.

The smug Tories are relentlessly telling us that under their leadership the national debt is lower and that unemployment is lower. They claim that more people are in permanent employment and that more apprenticeships have been created along with more doctors and nurses, and yet are determined to drive on with their ideological cuts to the poorest. They claim we now have the fastest growing economy in the developed world but still believe that the poorest and least able should be punished.

 Before the election the conservatives said it was necessary to implement more and more cuts but refused to tell us where these cuts would come from. It was clear that they knew exactly where the cuts would come from but refused again and again to confirm the cuts to working tax credits attacking families who do work. 

The promises they made during the last government were nearly all broken and almost all the targets that PM David Cameron set himself were missed. The government along with the right wing media have repeatedly led the public to believe that the economy state they inherited was entirely down to the Labour party, despite supporting the spending figures during their stint in opposition. They have tries consistently to imply that the actions of Gordon Brown and his Labour party were solely responsible for a global financial meltdown. They say we were on the brink when they took over and had it not been for the tough decisions chancellor George Osbourne took we would now be in the same situation.

If they weren’t brave enough or honest enough to tell us their real plans before the election, why should we believe them now? Why would we think that a collective of the very wealthiest in society should care a jot about equality or politics of compassion when they deny food, well-being and in many cases life, for the most vulnerable people in society.

Despite the massive increase in people using foodbanks, Cameron claimed during PMQs today that child poverty fell during the last 5 years.

The announcement today smacks of moving the goal posts. A change of measure invariably means a change of results but can we trust Mr Duncan Smith, who along with 18 other MP's today had his official credit card suspended by ipsa for failing to show his expenses were valid, not cook the books and simply deny the existence of child poverty like they do the need for foodbanks?