AS schools look to a new academic year, school leaders, governors, teaching unions, Child Poverty Action Group and others working in schools have written to Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson, calling for the two-child benefit limit to be scrapped in the October budget.
In an open letter to the Minister, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), National Education Union (NEU), National Governance Association (NGA), Child Poverty Action Group, The Centre for Education and Youth, Children North East and The Sutton Trust say:
“Our classrooms are filled with children who are hungry, tired, and lacking the resources and equipment they need to succeed in their education. They’re also anxious and distracted by money worries at home as pressures on household budgets endure. For too long now we have seen the ways in which child poverty is having a detrimental effect on the wellbeing, attainment and attendance of children and young people, and it is becoming ever more impossible for schools to mitigate this.
“We … share the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. However, we fear that this mission will be undermined with child poverty levels rising year on year while the two-child limit remains in place. We are writing to share our concerns and to ask you to commit to abolishing this poverty-producing policy in the forthcoming autumn Budget.”
The letter says removing the policy would lift 300,000 children from poverty and mean 700,000 would be in less deep poverty:
“This single policy change would transform the life chances of the almost 1.6 million children affected by the policy across the UK, helping to tackle educational disparities and in turn support schools. Without action, more than 60 per cent of children in families with three or more children will be affected by the policy by the time it is fully rolled out and our school system will be stretched beyond repair.”
The two-child limit denies child allowances in universal credit and tax credits (worth up to £3,455 per year) to third or subsequent children born after April 2017. UK child poverty is at a record level.
* Read the letter to Bridget Phillipson here.
* Source: Child Poverty Action Group