Call for more money to tackle child poverty
A leading children’s charity is calling on the Government to give an extra £5 a week for each child living in low-income families from next April.
The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has warned that without this increase the Government will almost certainly miss its first milestone target for reducing child poverty.
The charity’s ‘Make it a fiver Gordon’ campaign refers to forecasts by the Institute for Fiscal Studies which suggest that an increase of between £3 and £5 a week in the new child tax credit is needed to ensure targets to cut child poverty are met.
In 1999 the Prime Minister pledged to eradicate child poverty within 20 years. The Government’s first target is to reduce the number of children living in poverty by a quarter by the end of 2004/05.
Martin Barnes, director of the Child Poverty Action Group, explained that without a significant increase in the child tax credit the first milestone target for reducing child poverty will almost certainly be missed.
‘Significant increases in financial support for children have been made but more needs to be done if the ambitious targets to lift children out of poverty are to be achieved,’ he stated.
The rate of the child tax credit from April 2004 should be announced in the Chancellor’s Pre-Budget statement in the autumn.
