Minister's response on North East poverty crisis as Labour faces pleas for urgent action in Budget

A minister has promised Labour has “a lot to come” in the fight against child poverty, as North East campaigners pleaded with the Government to take more urgent action.

The North East Child Poverty Commission (NECPC) has urged Chancellor Rachel Reeves to use next week’s Budget to enact sweeping measures to lift struggling families out of hardship, including a major expansion of free school meals and an end to the controversial two-child benefit cap. On Wednesday, the Government’s Child Poverty Taskforce published a framework document pledging to “focus on reducing the number of children in relative poverty after housing costs, reducing the number of children who are going without essentials, and giving all children the best start in life”.

But the unit will not set out its actual strategy to combat the scourge until next Spring, prompting charities to demand ministers act faster. Around 30% of babies, children and young people across the North East are living in relative poverty, according to most recent data, with 118,000 in the region said to be growing up poor.

In its submission to the Autumn Budget, the NECPC warns that rising levels of hardship were putting “unsustainable pressure on the North East’s public services including education, health and local councils” and demands “immediate action”. They suggest expanding free school meals to at least all school and college pupils in families in receipt of Universal Credit and lifting the two-child limit, which it says would lift 300,000 children out of poverty overnight and mean a further 700,000 children living in less severe poverty across the UK.

During a visit to the North East on Thursday, employment minister Alison McGovern said she believed the Government was “making progress” and said the taskforce’s strategies would need to be made “locally relevant” to each region to respond to their different needs. Ms McGovern sits on the taskforce, alongside education secretary and Houghton and Sunderland South MP Bridget Phillipson, and said it was “talking to industry” about how to bring down food and energy costs.

She added: “The North East is… I don’t want to say that it is so bad here, because the thing that I feel is that there is so much opportunity here and we want to focus on that for our kids. What does a good childhood growing up in the North East look like? What does a good set of opportunities look like?”

The Birkenhead MP also championed Labour’s new Employment Rights Bill, which she said will pave the way for improved wages for social care workers. She added: “They are some of the most highly-skilled, lowest-paid workers in the country, who gave everything to this country during the pandemic, and I think they are entitled to those clauses in the bill which say we are going to give them legal status and have a negotiating body for them and to put their wages on a proper footing.

“When you think about families in poverty, there will be a lot of people working in social care for whom that is very important. We are making progress. We have a lot to do, a lot on this agenda, and there will be a lot to come.”

Jarrow and Gateshead East MP Kate Osborne, who accompanied Ms McGovern on a tour of the A&P shipyard in Hebburn, added it was “completely unacceptable” for almost 40% of children in her constituency to be living in poverty and said there “is a lot that we can and need to do”. But the chair of the NECPC, Beth Farhat, argued on Wednesday that such work “can and should start now”.

She said: “We strongly welcome today’s confirmation that tackling child poverty is a central and urgent priority for the Government, and that Ministers are determined to deliver lasting change through a 10-year plan. Achieving this is absolutely critical to the future prosperity and wellbeing of our region – and the commitment to listen to organisations, families and children in all parts of the country as the plan is developed is vital if it’s to address the challenges and opportunities we have here in the North East.

"But the Government doesn’t need to wait for a longer-term strategy to improve the living standards of babies, children and young people growing up today across our region. Next week’s Budget provides an opportunity to make a real difference right now, and to create a foundation from which the new child poverty strategy – and, most importantly, families – can build.”

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