The Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza has produced a totally damming Report on Child Poverty in the UK.
The report is based on listening to children about their experiences of poverty – not just statistics but what it feels like – the sense of shame of being poor, a great awareness of their families financial situation, the challenges of keeping homes warm and of living in temporary accommodation. What struck me in particular was children hiding the family’s financial circumstances and feeling embarrassed about it and being bullied and shamed by other children for being poor.
The commentary by Dame de Souza on the Report could hardly be blunter. She says there is:
an almost-Dickensian level of poverty facing some children in England today. After four years as Children’s Commissioner and as a teacher and headteacher before that, few things truly leave me speechless
She says that there are no simple solutions and that “the extension of free school meals to all children living in households receiving Universal Credit will help” – this is of course a long standing Lib Dem request.
It will come as no surprise to anyone that she also says:
I’m also very clear that any child poverty strategy must be built on the foundation of scrapping the two-child limit.
This seems so obvious that it seems extraordinary that the Labour Government won’t recognise it. I have made various speeches about this is the last few years, always included sundry quotes from various Labour MPs – some of them now Ministers-about how awful the cap is – but they continue to do nothing.
Last week the latest stats on the cap were published and these show that at the end of April 2025 1,665,540 children were living in households affected by the cap – an increase of 2% in a year. The accompanying statistics have the figures for constituency and local authority and will be useful for our continued campaigning on this issue.
Removing the 2 child cap should a basic aim of this Government. The Report could not be clearer:
Removing the two-child limit is the most cost-effective way to lift children out of poverty
Time for action.
* Simon McGrath is a Councillor in Wimbledon and represents Lib Dem Councillors on the Party’s Federal Board
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18 Comments
There is a huge problem with our welfare system: at the same time, it both leaves some people living in real poverty while others live far more comfortably on benefits that if they worked full time on National Living Wage. (On this second point, worth reading the report from the Centre for Social Justice that gives a number of examples, including “ An out-of-work single parent, claiming PIP for anxiety and benefits for a child with additional needs such as ADHD, would receive £36,900 – over £14,000 more than the after-tax wages of a full-time worker on the NLW.”
Complete reform is essential to provide a system that meets basic needs but without having incentives to live on benefits rather than work for a living, or having incentives on parents to push to have their children diagnosed with ADHD or Autism.
“children hiding the family’s financial circumstances and feeling embarrassed about it and being bullied and shamed by other children for being poor.”
This will, if my own experience is anything to go by, ensure a reasonable supply of future recruits to Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s new party. When I was at school my school uniform was always a problem for my family and was often a bit threadbare and too small because I’d outgrown it. When others in the class were going off doing this and that, I wasn’t, because the family couldn’t afford it. My sister and I were entitled to free school meals but we didn’t claim them. We had to bring our dinner money every Friday at school register class and it would have been obvious to everyone that we were on free dinners.
So, although I knew I wasn’t less able than anyone else, because my academic results were good and I wasn’t too bad at sport I always felt somehow to be socially inferior. It shaped my socialist political opinions for life! If I’d gone off with the other kids on those school skiing trips I may well have turned out to be a Tory! Who knows?
The report is informative and gives a valuable perspective because of the way it focuses on childrens’ experiences. But I think there are caveats. It describes lots of individual experiences, but rarely gives any indication of how common or rare those experiences are. And while some of the things it cites are things you wouldn’t wish on any child and do need fixing (food insecurity, children living in temporary accommodation), others look a bit like, complaining that the World isn’t perfect (an adventure playground possibly closing).
The recommendations generally look desirable in principle, although are uncosted. I think the thing I’d prioritise is making school meals free for everyone (which actually goes beyond de Souza’s recommendations, but which would make a huge difference for children’s health as well as removing any social stigma around free meals).
By the way, De Souza’s commentary describing the poverty as ‘almost Dickensian’ is ludicrous over-exaggeration. Her report cites problems that include children walking to school because they can’t afford the bus fare or careers guidance for career planning not being available. Dickens, at one point aged 12, didn’t even go to school because he was working 10 hour-days in a shoe-blacking factory. Today’s problems of poverty are serious and need addressing but making out it’s as bad as in 19th century Britain is fanciful.
@Peter; My experience at school was somewhat similar to yours in terms of not being able to afford things that were normal to many other kids – and that also lead me to being much more left wing in my teenage/early adult days than I am today.
With hindsight though, I think that kind of inequality is at least to some extent an inevitable part of life in a free society: Unless you force every family to have the same income and every parent to treat their kids the same way, you will always have some parents buying stuff for their children that other parents either can’t afford or choose not to. A big part of the solution to that is probably to make sure that schooling includes teaching children (and adults) the importance of accepting and respecting everyone else as a valuable human being, no matter what each person’s circumstances – so that children from poorer families are less likely to feel stigmatised because of being poorer.
Brenda’s point is well made. The welfare system is thoroughly broken by trying to put a monetary value that will “put right” every perceived or even perceivable discrepancy affecting how people live. As a result, a vast, complex system supported by an expensive bureaucracy to move money around, coupled with directly employed people trying to do the same in areas where it is perceived some families cannot cope – and all of these are growing much faster than the economy can cope with.
We have to overcome the gaslighting of the progressive left and come to terms with the fact that our economy has only grown by 3.6% in total over last five years and our GDP per head now only ranks 20th in the world. Factor in the cost of housing and the skewed nature of income and wealth in the UK and we are verging on permanent relegation from the Premier league and decline to being a mid table Championship team.
If we want new stuff for the needy, we need to be willing to make the case to the country that we have to be willing to pay for it. Until then we should treat statements about *almost* Dickensian levels of poverty facing *some* children as the hyperbole they are.
If our social security system truly is that bad while also being that expensive, it is not broken, it is irredeemably trashed.
Poverty should never be a barrier to academic achievement. All to often the progressive left has failed to acknowledge that family breakdown as one of the biggest drivers of poverty..
The Ugandan Asians arrived in the UK with nothing. A tight knit family unit is the best route out of poverty for children bar none .. That’s why those families have done so well .
@ Simon,
Interesting to know you had a similar background.
Just as an addition to my previous personal comment: I didn’t feel socially awkward until somehow I found myself in the top stream of the local grammar school at the age of 12. I’m still not sure how that happened. I was more interested in football than anything else. Due to the correlation of economic wellbeing with academic success it was inevitable that my classmates would come from a higher social strata than myself. Whereas my dad worked in a factory, most of the others had professional parents or were business owners. I wasn’t bullied or treated badly with any snobbery – it was more a question of how I felt.
I still had my friends who lived in nearby streets but they soon started to view me as a “grammar school” boy so it could be quite difficult in both groups.
I can’t complain overall though. I like to think I can hold an intelligent conversation with anyone from any walk of life. Being in a football team is good in this respect. The goalie can be a uni professor and the centre forward can be a van driver. All are equal on the pitch and socially afterwards.
The topic of child poverty is linked to the recently much discussed question of cuts in welfare benefits. Lib Dems, very fairly, make the point that many of these benefits are paid to those in-work as a counter to those who claim that benefit recipients are somehow scroungers.
Looking at it from another angle we should be asking why those in work need to be paid benefits when most of their employers are doing well and making good profits. If there were no in-work benefits, employers would have to pay a living wage otherwise their workers wouldn’t, by definition, continue to live. I’m not suggesting that we should suddenly cut in-work benefits but we should start to think about how wages, as paid by the employers, can be improved so they aren’t necessary.
That’s the best way of cutting the welfare bill.
The present system encourages employers to help their employees receive maximum social benefits rather than pay them higher wages.
I’d agree with Simon that free school meals have to be free for all. It’s the only way you get rid of the stigma. Free services for children are generally more effective than cash to their parents. They help square the circle that while all children deserve a good start in life, not all their parents are equally able to provide it.
I’d expect that most Lib Dems will consider that Dame Rachel de Souza’s shocking report should mean that benefits need to be increased. However, my suspicion is that as benefits increase, the wages of those on benefits decrease. They won’t be earning enough to pay much, if anything, in taxes. Approximately half of the £100bn benefits bill goes to those in work.
We end up with the question of poverty not being properly addressed, but, on the other hand, the employers of this subsidised labour will, or should be, be saying “thank you very much”!
The IFS say that:
“Decades of benefit reforms have pushed more people into work – but very often into part-time, low-paid work with little prospect of progression
UK benefit reforms in recent decades have followed a consistent pattern of resulting in higher employment than the system they replaced – but usually in part-time, low-paid work which rarely leads to career progression. As a result, those encouraged to enter paid work tend to remain on low pay, paying little in tax and often still being entitled to in-work benefits……………..”
https://ifs.org.uk/inequality/press-release/decades-of-benefit-reforms-have-pushed-more-people-into-work-but-very-often-into-part-time-low-paid-work-with-little-prospect-of-progression/
Might root causes of unjustifiable poverty in the 6th richest nation in the World include the following:
1) A (constructed) mal-distribution of wealth
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/07/15/the-wealth-series-2-who-are-the-wealthy/
2) A taxation system which favours the wealthy
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/06/28/what-is-screwing-britain/
P.S. The continuing starvation/underfeeding of our children has, does and will result in their “Cumulative Disadvantage”/stunting. In economic terms alone, what will that do to our future working and dependency groups?
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3348542/
P. P. S. Meanwhile, China has lifted 800, million people out of poverty.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience
P. P. P. Might China’s success in reducing poverty be connected to its government and society not being dominated by the finance/lending groups/industry?
@ Steve,
We aren’t “the 6th richest nation in the world”. What really matters in income per capita.
On this basis we are 18th. Only slightly behind Germany but quite a way in front of Japan.
Having said this, there is still more than enough wealth/income to eliminate poverty. It just needs to be shared out more equitably. But this is not a message that will appeal to all Lib Dems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
Steve,
I do worry that you are concentrating on headlines rather than relevant facts when you quote things like
P. P. S. Meanwhile, China has lifted 800, million people out of poverty.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience
The first sentence in this report is “BEIJING, April 1, 2022— Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below $1.90 per day – the International Poverty Line as defined by the World Bank to track global extreme poverty– has fallen by close to 800 million.”
How is any of this relevant to ‘the 6th richest nation in the World,’ whichever nation you perceive to be in 6th place? (ref: my previous post “our (UK) GDP per head now only ranks 20th in the world.”)
Thanks to PeterMartin and David Evans!
According to AI Overview on the Internet “The UK has the sixth-largest national economy in the world.” However, the income per capita certainly matters muchly as kindly pointed out.
Indeed, might it endorse the point that, as a nation, the keeping of some 25% of our children/future citizens/future workers in chronic/permanent hunger/starvation/stunting etc. is a political decision and not forced upon us.?
Might this cruel and avoidable, continuing decision be based upon political dogma and/or class conflict/class exploitation or what?
The reference to China is intended to validate the point that a society has achieved becoming a leading economic entity and reduce poverty for its people.
Might we, not least L. D.s, promote such?
Might our following/worshiping Neo-liberal politics and socio-economics being doing the wretched reverse of this?
Please also notice that China does not have a powerful and demanding rentier/financially extractive group.
https://michael-hudson.com/2025/07/why-america-no-longer-makes-its-own-future/
It’s disappointing to see that only one comment mentioned family breakdown, which is a significant driver of children’s outcomes in life.
Thelma, Thank you for your comment. It is indeed disappointing to see that only one comment mentioned family breakdown.
Also thank you to Craig for mentioning ‘All to often the progressive left has failed to acknowledge that family breakdown as one of the biggest drivers of poverty.’
You both raise a vital point that I am sure most of us are aware of but omitted to mention.
I wondered why, and noticed that Simon did not mention it in his article summarising the report and wondered if he had inadvertently missed it. N.B. Also thanks to Simon for your Article, I personally, and I am certain all of us appreciate all effort the people who take their time to write articles here put into it. Few of us have time to find, download and read a 67 page report.
However on searching the report, I found no reference to the word breakdown, nor single parent, only one to parent (as opposed to parents) and that one is not relevant to breakdown, nor split, couple, marriage or divorce.
It seems that the whole tenor of the report was to tell us what poverty means to children so society can consider how to react to it once its there. Sadly preventing child poverty seems to have been beyond its scope. I hope the Children’s commissioner has produced a report on that elsewhere.
It’s simplistic to blame “family breakdown” for any of society’s ills, when it may be a symptom as much as a cause. In particular, we should not assume that it is always in people’s best interests that families stay together. There are scenarios where it clearly is not, one obvious example being abusive relationships. Family courts have a tendency to prioritise parental contact over the best interests of the children, especially if one parent (usually the father) invokes the disputed concept of “parental alienation” in response to allegations of violence or abuse from the other (usually the mother). Recent guidance says that “Family courts in England and Wales should give more weight to allegations of domestic abuse than to claims of ‘parental alienation'”, so hopefully this is changing now.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c047zq01z0ko
@Alex: If people were attempting to blame family breakdown as the sole cause of society’s ills, then yes that would be simplistic and wrong. But no-one here is trying to do that. As I understand it, what Thelma and others are doing is pointing out that family breakdown is one of the things that contributes to poverty and therefore should be mentioned (alongside all the other things that contributed to poverty). That is correct and is not at all simplistic.