Summary of the Government’s Child Poverty Strategy

An overview of the Government’s ambition to ‘lift over half a million children out of poverty’.

On Friday 5th December, the UK Government launched its new Child Poverty Strategy which promises the biggest reduction of child poverty in a single parliament since records began. 

Our Child, Our Future: Tackling Child Poverty explains that as well as lifting 550,000 children of out of ‘relative low income’, around 7.1 million children’s households will have an increased income, including 1.4 million children who are in deep material poverty (by the end of parliament). For context, 31% of UK children are in relative low income in the UK, which is higher than most EU and OECD countries. Almost three quarters of these children are in working families, which is a significant increase from 2000 where this was around half of children in poverty.

What does the strategy include?

The main driver in the reduction of child poverty is the lifting of the two-child  benefit cap (effective from April 2026). This change means families of any size can receive Universal Credit for all their children. This is estimated to account for 450,000 fewer children in lower income households, so you can see how this change does the heavy lifting in the strategy.  However, there are other measures within the strategy to further the impact (some of which were in place prior to the strategy’s publication) including:

• Increase of the National Living Wage to £12.21 an hour (this will go up again to £12.71 in April 2026).
• Proposed reforms to Child Maintenance Service – helping lift 20,000 children out of relative low income.
• Expanded free school meals to all children in receipt of Universal Credit (helping lift 100,000 children out of relative low income by end of parliament).
• Expanded government-funded childcare for working families in England – for children from 9 months.
• Extended Warm Homes Discount to an additional 2.7 million households in Great Britain.
• Introduced above inflation increase to Universal Credit.
• Announced plans to roll out Best Start Family Hubs in every local authority in England – estimated to support 500,000 children.
• Increased Early Years Pupil Premium in England by 45% (increase from £388 to £570 per child per year).
• Announced an investment of £39 billion in Social and Affordable Homes Programme (10-year plan and ‘biggest investment in recent memory’).
• Announced a £1 billion package for a new Crisis and Resilience Fund in England (giving councils funding to protect households from falling into crisis).
• Committed £600 million investment in the Holiday Activity and Food Programme in England – to help deliver enriching activities and healthy food to the poorest of children during school holidays (for the next three years).
• Implemented Fair Repayment Rate in Universal Credit – this is estimated to give the poorest households an additional £35 a month, on average.
• Improved employee rights to create ‘more secure jobs’ and more ‘personalised support’ to get into work.
• Started rolling out free breakfast clubs.
• Introduced limit of three branded school items to help reduce uniform costs.
• Announced Pride in Place Programme which promises to deliver up to £5 billion of funding to 244 of the most in-need places in Great Britain.
• Empowered local government and strategic authorities with the tools they need to prioritise child poverty, through the new Outcomes for Local Government and the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill.
• Invested £500 million in the Better Futures Fund in England (supporting 200,000 vulnerable young people and their families to access opportunities).
• Created tens of thousands of places in schools-based nurseries.
• Invested £2.4 billion in the Families First Partner Programme in England, which can deliver early intervention and support to up to 400,000 families.

The Government has also pledged £8 million to end the placement of families in bed and breakfasts beyond a six-week limit. 

Does it go far enough?

While the strategy promises significant progress, there are concerns that the plan doesn’t go far enough or may not be able to deliver on its outcomes. The Health Foundation said that further action was needed to be able to deliver a “preventative approach that tackles the deep structural causes of poverty” – and The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) explains that there is, “considerable uncertainty over how large a reduction in measured poverty these policies will ultimately deliver, partly due to genuine economic uncertainty”.

Charities were also disappointed at a lack of long-term planning, as they initially expected a 10-year strategy. Phillip Anderson from the National Children’s Bureau explains:

“Abolishing the two-child limit is a hell of a centrepiece, but beyond that, it’s mainly a summary of previously announced policies and commitments. The really big thing for me is it misses the opportunity to talk about the longer term. It was supposed to be a 10-year strategy; we wanted to see real ambition and, ideally, legally binding targets for reducing poverty. The government itself says there will still be around four million children living in poverty after these measures and the strategy has very little to say to them.”

Read the full strategy:  Our Children, Our Future Tackling Child Poverty.

References

1. Our Children, Our Future Tackling Child Poverty
2. Over half a million children to be lifted out of poverty as government unveils historic child poverty strategy
3. Child poverty strategy unveiled – but not everyone’s happy
4. Government pledges to end children living in B&Bs
5. Removing the two-child limit on Universal Credit: Impact on low income poverty levels in the United Kingdom