Today's
UNICEF report blows the lid on the New Labour rhetoric about focusing on child poverty. Inequality in the UK has grown under Brown's Chancellorship, and we have missed even our own moderate targets on reducing child poverty.
This independent report puts the UK bottom among 21 industrialised nations for child well-being - and is a result of long-term trends that started under the Tories and have continued under New Labour.
In reaction to the report, Save the Children said: "The UK Government is not investing enough in the well-being of children, especially to combat poverty and deprivation". Even the Government's own Children's Commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley-Green said, "I think the shocking conclusion is that as a nation we have been failing our children".
The most startling findings are that the child poverty has doubled since 1979, and that over one in seven children live in households earning less than half the national average wage. The UK came 18th in the study for children's material well-being, despite being the fifth richest country. In education well-being (which measured school achievement, further education, and the transition to employment) the UK came 17th.
Despite this evidence, and a volley of condemnation and concern from the UK's children's charities and from the Children's Commissioner, the Government has dismissed the report as "out of date".
So let's bring the Government up to date: the latest figures for youth unemployment (December 2006) show that it is higher than when we came to power in 1997; according to UCAS last year there were fewer university applications from working class children - deterred by top-up fees and debt; and a report by Save the Children in January this year showed that in many inner city areas about half our children are living in poverty.
The reality is that inequality in income, health, housing, education is damaging the life chances of UK children both materially and psychologically.
The shameful findings of this report should act as a wake-up call to fight for socialist and redistributive policies.
Labels: child poverty, children, inequality, UNICEF
16 Comments:
This report is a disgrace and should shame us all.
I'm very dubious about some of the stuff being assessed. Asking children how happy they are? This is not the business of government.
Having said that, 18th in the child poverty rankings is not impressive for a government who've chosen to trumpet their efforts to combat child poverty heavily. 17th under education for a PM who was elected in large part under the slogan Education, Education, Education?
I wrote a post a little while ago on my blog saying that it sounded as if things like the child tax credits system had really helped alleviate child poverty. I'm quite worried if this isn't the case - it's the first I've heard that it isn't the case.
I'm a Tory so I do have to ask - will giving these children's parents greater state handouts/taxing these children's parents less, help them or not? Also, we might be the 5th richest country, but maybe if we had redistributive policies we wouldn't be so well off, so relative poverty would decrease but absolute poverty might increase.
I also have to say to you left wing people here - I'm reading this blog just after having to argue with someone on Guido Fawkes' blog that people who don't pay for private healthcare just like living off other people's money. That's extreme right wing, but nevertheless, if your policies are too redistributive, you won't get elected. Do you honestly think even Blair likes being bullied by the Sun? The man is obsessed with his legacy, but he's hamstrung in what he does by the Sun. He mostly only bows to its views out of necessity.
Without wishing to say that there isn't a problem here - there certainly is - if we look at the indicators in the report for material well being, there are some hints at why we've come out so far behind.
Households without jobs is one income - households without an employed adult. I presume this includes single parent households where the adult doesn't work? In the UK, this is vastly less common than in other European countries, and even John Hutton's proposals to have parents back in work when a child is 12 rather than 16 will leave us behind on this stat. I'm not even sure that we should cut from 16 to 12 - but cutting from 16 to 12 would help us move up the ladder in this report table.
Relative income is a component. And we're the 5th richest country. Therefore, in theory you can be not so badly off at all and still fall well below the median income (the measure they used to pick the average). However, I do appreciate that the median system may allow bottom end people to be vastly worse off than people just a tier above them, and that if people are well off here, prices tend to rise.
Finally, the third component used for determining material well being is called "reported deprivation". Apparently there are three indicators of this.
"Percentage of children reporting low family affluence" is a difficult one to comment on because I don't know what it means.
"Percentage of children reporting few educational resources" has the same problem as the last indicator, except that I can say that it sounds like it's not part of material well being but part of the (equally important) education category.
"Percentage of children reporting fewer than 10 books in the home" meanwhile is an issue of culture. I have on my desk a number of books - all bought from high street (mostly Waterstones) bookshops - let's see - Gorgias by Plato, Poems from the Sanskrit trans. J.Brough, Vintage Murakami, Dracula by Bram Stoker, Gulliver's Tales by Jonathan Swift, Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, and The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. I shall add up the money I spent on these...£16 I think.
Lack of books in a household is indicative of a bad enviornment for a child, but it's indicative of a problem that can't necessarily be solved just by throwing money at it. Children can get books from libraries - they can't go to a library to find someone to teach them to read those books.
Go to a council estate. Look at the chavs riding bikes and drinking alcohol and shouting chauvinistic nastiness, lacking in aspiration and feeling completely alienated from Guardianista-type "mainstream" society. If you gave these people £16, would they spend it on a pile of books?
Probably not. Perhaps, if they'd had a different upbringing, they would've liked to. But the point is that just increasing handouts to poor people is not necessarily going to help things.
I'm not a Tory who resents paying tax to help poor people. But I want my money spent in such a way that will actually help people, and I have to ask if there aren't better things to do with state funds than allow them to be spent on self-destructive alcohol addictions. I'm sure increased handouts would help some, but they'd probably be counter-productive for some too. Constantly bashing on about the importance of redistributive policies is unimaginative and simplistic and very unlikely to solve the world's problems. As is often said, wealth is not finite. You just need a balance because unfortunately, a lot of wealth creators are less than charitable.
Anyway, I won't bang on and on and write a full analysis of this report, which I'm still reading anyhow. But no matter how much money you hand out, so long as poor children are brought up in a culture hostile to middle class values such as politeness, reading for pleasure, temperance (sorry for my apparent obsession with alcohol - I'm not an absolute temperance campaigner, I promise!), education...so long as they are brought up in crumbling council estates, prohibited from getting ideas above their station (ie, wanting to behave better and earn money and help their children after them, and so on)...so long as poor children are encouraged to sit vegetable-like in front of a TV or console (you can get a console second hand pretty cheaply so being poor doesn't mean you can't have a console), so long as they're given no sense of self esteem...and so on and so on and so on...
So long as all these issues and more remain, state largesse will only help alleviate embarassment about child poverty statistics for politicians.
And after all those words we haven't even got started on the problem of improving education and life opportunities.
The report isn't "out of date". I'd love to see some policies which would ease the problems highlighted here. Regardless of what the report says, if you walk around some areas of London, say, it's obvious from site that Britain is hardly poverty free. But I don't see how redistribution will magically solve things. Large scale redistribution would be as culturally damaging as the worst excesses of Thatcherism.
Anon, as a Thatcherite, I would have thought you would appreciate the concept of money supply. This is something that Margaret never fully understood (or didn't want to understand).
A full distribution of wealth will keep the wheels of the UK turning. The previously poor will spend their money and thus improve the economy. To give even more to the well-off will mean that they squirrel it away in off-shore accounts or spend it on foreign holidays or houses both here and abroad, thus stoking up the house price problem.
By the way, where did you get 6 books for £16? Did you fiddle the cashier or are you a Waterstones shareholder ;-)
Yesterday's news about the 15 yr old being shot is another indictment of the disgraceful state we are in.
We must review our policies toward underprivileged children. With this dreadful spiralling cost of housing and complete lack of social housing there's hardly a household that has one parent working and one at home caring for the children.
This talk earlier about giving the poor a leg-up on the housing ladder is only going to make matters worse! House prices must come down and the best way to attack the problem is to provide proper social housing (not ghettos) that is affordable and will provide the economic environment for mothers to raise their children if they wish.
We also need to provide more free child care. Tax credits are a diversion, we need the state provision to make work a viable option for those who chose to continue their career.
The other issue is of course low pay - the minimum wage is disgracefully low and a complete joke for young people.
Curlew - well, giving the poor money might help the world economy work, but if everything they buy is a Chinese import, say?..I'm not an economist, but doesn't that only work automatically if money isn't poured out of the country? Also, consumer culture has social problems. Children who grow up with too much "stuff" just end up spoilt. Having all the poor children's parents buy their kids loads of cheap goods and gizmos and stuff might be good for the economy, but won't necessarily help their children's lives.
Books - 7 books actually - my books cost £16 because I got 4 as £2 editions (perfectly good quality - Penguin Popular Classics, sold in Borders), Plato and the poems were £2 second hand, and Murakami was £4, reduced, I think - even if I'm wrong, the publishers price is only £5-6 (it only has dollars on the back).
Of course, parents can't get good children's books as easily as cheap as that, but book prices are pretty low on the whole, I often wonder how Waterstones turn a profit. I'm waiting for the Blunkett Diaries to come down to £8.99, then I'll get them, and will be able to snigger at them knowledgeably.
NPM - if there were more houses full stop, house prices would fall. House prices are a pretty straightforward supply-demand thing in most respects I believe - there's not enough so they cost a lot. We need to build more houses. Social housing is an issue, but I don't think it'll make house prices go down.
Jane - how much free childcare is there currently? And presumably you mean only available to those under a certain income?
On the minimum wage - putting it up is hardly a priority. Perhaps raising the level it's set at for 17 year olds etc, even to parity with the standard minimum wage...but how about you see that the current standard is actually enforced first? I know for a fact that there's a farm a mile from where I live which pays nothing like the minimum wage, whether to illegal immigrants or not - I even know that they've been reported, but no-one acts on it. There's no point having an ever increasing minimum wage that people just ignore more and more and more the higher you go. Start by enforcing the current one.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6366463.stm
Sorry to be a little off topic, but as it touches on a number of issues people have raised above, I have to ask you, what do you think of Mr Hain?
From a Tory point of view, based on record in office and observation of when he's said what, he comes across as a complete opportunist. John McDonnell has always seemed like a socialist on principle, wheras Hain just seems to want to be Deputy Leader. If Blair and Prezza had another half dozen years to go, would he be campaigning for this stuff even in private?
I really have to ask also if free TV is a good one. Who does that help? I don't understand. At least restricted to the elderly you can argue that they can't go out very easily and maybe can't read due to poor eyesight, etc. If people don't have to actually pay their TV licence fee they're more likely to waste money on Sky TV brainwashing.
for the Tory voter and New Labour supporters
I get the child tax credit at the basic rate of £78.98 for the pair of them for a month as my husband is just into the higher tax band. With the child benefit of £116.60 for two kids as well it's not enough for part-time childcare only a some brakfast at the after school club or two afternoons for the big one which would keave enough at foour punds per week for ONE HOUR of childcare for the baby at four pounds an hour with a local childminder so I can't pay off student debts and even our joint current account is everdrawn as I've only temped and done voluntary work since leaving the civil service where I was bullied and I'd been signed off sick anyway because the crazy shift pattern I had to work at an airport was making me ill the doctor said. I didn't manage to earn enough to pay off my debts before having my kids as I was always a month behind myself, I'd started with a graduate overdraft which is basically still with me twelve years later though of course it's not free anymore so the charges and interest have to be paid as well - I couldn't really leave it much later to have them as I was 27 when I had the first and now I'm nearly 34!! I wouldn't want to work full time at the moment as I would misws them growing up and I would need to be on a high salary to make it cost effective anyway. My family visit and help when they can such as my retired aunt but they can't provide chidcare as they live 100 miles! I wouldn't say my kids go without as you can borrow money and people give me clothes and things but there's not much spare after food and housing and I've just had to accept living with debts. It's hard for my husband as he was brought up to see debt as shameful and I used to feel the same but you just have to live with it under this government's Tory policies. One thing that would help would be if mortgage and rent costs were not so high; it's too high in proportion to the other things you have to pay for when you work it out as a percentage. I made a speech at Labour party conference 2005 detailed how I wasn't helped by the tax credit system; I was pregnant with my second child at the time and afterwards someone ca up to me and said I could study for qualifications to get out of this situation. Well I already have a BA degree!; I'd just mentioned my student debt! It's not just single parents that are badly off under New Labour it's many parents. This is not to say that I'm badly of compared to lots of other people; on paper I wouldn't be as I have my name on the mortgage which I used to pay half of before having the children but basically I've never been in credit despite working (apart for some aggregate months unemployed when the temping dried up) since leaving University at 22. The temping paid ok but not big bucks asd it was mostly filing in darkj basements etc despite the fact that I can type and use IT etc but there's not the about. It helps it you have a car too as I can't yet drive so had fun travelling all over Hillingdon on the buses hoping they would turn up in time to get me in on time each day, a hit or miss process!
A lot of parents whether single or or in couples are having to work all the hours God sends just to get the income we have and youcould say that no-one in teh higher tax bracket should get any tax credit or child benefit for that matter as there are people worse off. I'd like to move to a cheaper area but tehn my husband couldn't get to work and if I worked in London I'm lookking at £15 a day or so just for the fare. I hope they don't remove the child bens and tax credit tho as I spend it mostly on food; yes my husbnd gives me moeny as well but it dosen't go far. We have day care at teh school for 3s and above but many of us can't afford to use it as we are not in a Sure start area.
That's the reality youTory voters; that's why 9 out of 10 families get tax credits because the housing market is out o control and we would'n qualify for a council house anyway and because wages are being kept down by the fat cats and their bonusues. My husband is MSc qualifies and a manager by the way but it's a very small company, almost self employed. That's also why we need atrade union freedom Bill to fight for better conditions for us. No wonder our kids are suffering when everyhting is made so difficult, I often have to drop everything to run to the bank at short notice to puit money in so I don't get charged for going over my overdrat limit which is not much fun for the kids who should be protected from adult worries.
It also costs money even to goto toddler groups and things.
I explained all this at conference to Robin Oakley (now at CNN) and he said I was blocked at every turn
Still you can'tput your life on hold you just have to carry on and campaign for better conditions for everyone as John's campaign is and hope as Mr. Micawber said tha that "Something will turn up!" I f you do what you wan tot do at work you don't really mind about salary but there is a bottom line as you need shoes etc just to get to work.
At least going to campaign meetings keeps my brain in gear!
I think this is going to be one of the seminal questions of our time, yes it is a very complex situation, but to me it looks as if Blatcherism has finally worked its poison through the generations: individualism, greed, callousness, and inequality, bad parenting, etc endemic in the U.K has led to the UK being bottom of the league of 21 economically advanced countries, even trailing the United States, another incredibly rich but unequal society which comes second to last. Newsnight had a special on it and all the politicians could offer, including the odious Jim Murphy was platitudes, excuses and more religion in welfare. Paxo nailed him and Osbore by asking would they raise benefits, as if, they are cutting them all.
Of course there are other complexities as to why we are so low in the tables, I know that dysfunction and emotional dis-balance is right across the classes, my comments are largely restricted to commenting about those who are imo, suffering the most, those who are poor, low income or on benefits. I would argue that inequality is central to to the malaise growing in our society: the university/low skill divide which is increasing as more and more middle class children head off to university, often when realistically they are not upto it.But to me, it is above all, the naked competitive culture, individualism and inequality we have developed here:, the 51st State that worships at the feet of the great United States and the anglo-saxon turbo-economy which means parents moves home to get their kids into a decent school, lie about their religion and work so many hours they rarely spend time with their children. The draconian welfare system which is moving inexorably back to Victorian times where religious charities doled out food packages to the great unwashed, indeed this is basically what all parties were proscribing as a remedy for this malaise on Newsnight.
The Welfare Reform Bill which will disabled people amongst other things lose upto thirty pounds a week is now in the Lords and will probably be voted on in the Spring has gone through opposed, this includes the sessions of the (labour lead)Works and Pensions Select Committee which sadly raised few objections to the Bill and even unprecedentedly authorised funds upfront for its implementation!
Indeed, it now seems that the Govts welfare reforms are to go even further that the those outlined in the Welfare Reform Bill, all these these changes will have major in my view, delitorious effects on child poverty: from April: unemployed people who cannot speak English will have to show they are learning the language or face losing benefits, there will be also be a ‘crackdown’(don’t you just love that word!) on single parents.(see links for details) Welfare is also increasingly being used as a tool for social policy, hence the sanctions that are applied if one doesn’t go on New Deal and the benefit cuts for those who don’t learn English.Welfare reform is now a key part of Tony Blair's and No 10’s ‘legacy agenda’ (in this case supported by Brown) and one can now see see that the ‘gloves are off’ as it were. The Freud review, (led by a former investment banker!) is to present its wide ranging proposals on welfare reform next month and is expected to suggest sweeping new changes to welfare including much wider privatization. John Hutton has also been visiting Australia where a extremely draconian welfare regime has been introduced, (with some resistance), which includes faith based groups running the welfare state. He is looking at plans for the private and voluntary sectors to take over responsibility for finding jobs for the 4.5 (an incorrect figure?) million people out of work in Britain. How will that all that end child poverty,
In my view, one of the key problems in relation to poverty/inequality issues is that the groups who are meant to raise the issues the issues, challenge the govts social policies, etc are either useless, toothless, increasingly compromised by running paid govt welfare services, or too close to them such as the TUC. A case in point is the Child Poverty Action Group, (CPAG) which has basically been a Blairite/Christian Socialist fiefdom for the last 15 years, perhaps even longer, (the crazy Frank Field was a former director.) The Left also for the last decade has largely ignored domestic poverty and inequality issues choosing to focus on imperialism and the culture wars, and even itself( just look at how many replies a post on a left group/trotsky, etc gets on here!) now one could say its the children who are paying the price
regards
frenetic
a good website about welfare issues
www.swansheffield.org.uk
resources
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmworpen.htm
Single parents/Freud review
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2011052,00.html
Benefit cuts for ethnic minorities
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6352793.stm
Australia
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/10/352511.html
Anon, a free TV licence doesn't provide free Sky Tv but access to the beeb and it's radio channels. However, I wouldn't put TV high on my list , but free bus travel seems a reasonable idea to me.
Chinese imports is a direct effect of globalisation, if maggie hadn't ruined the manufacturing industry the TVs would be made over here!
This house price spiral is unsustainable - you know this, we all know this. When it fails it'll be the last ones in that will suffer the most - any encouragement for poorer people to get on the housing ladder must be accompanied by a guarantee.
npm,
Say I have £100. If I have to use it on buying a TV licence, then that's that - I have terrestrial TV channels. If I don't have to pay that, I can shove the same cash into getting Sky.
Nevertheless, my main point was not that Sky TV would benefit/make other suffer etc. My point was that it's none of the state's business to pay for free television.
On buses - as a middle class person, I do object to ever-rising bus and train fares! At this rate I'm going to get a car (I presently scrape by going everywhere by train or bus). Without raising the standard fares, how are you going to pay for this without cutting services? You put up standard fares.
If it's coming out of taxation, it's a waste of money. Use the money to help bale out the damned bankrupt hospitals. Dead people don't need buses.
Anyhow, I think Hain's an opportunist. I'll change my mind when I start seeing him promoting something left wing other than gimmicks/initiatives, call them what you will.
Chinese imports - ok, bear with me. If they can make them cheaper in China, on rubbish wages there, why would they make TVs here instead?
Housing - I don't know what's going to bring house prices down though. Maybe they won't keep on going up and up. But a lot of people just predict we'll see more tenanting and less people owning their own houses, which worries me a good deal so...*shrugs* if I had what I felt was a good answer to the housing crisis I'd have a go at standing as a candidate next election off the back of it. What's the socialist solution to the house prices problem?
Is it me or is Peter Hain secretly reading this website and nicking all our ideas!!!
it's just a thought before I get sued for libel or something!
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