Cross-party MPs call on ministers to look into impact of Covid-19 on low-income families

The Work and Pensions Committee is calling on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to commission research into the impact of Covid-19 on low-income families and publish the results alongside its March 2022 Households Below Average Income statistics.

In its new report, ‘Children in Poverty: Measurement and targets’, the Committee states that ‘To date, DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] has not published any additional, dedicated, research or analysis on the impact of the pandemic on children and families in low-income.

It says it was ‘encouraged to hear that DWP is working with the Department of Health and Social Care and the Office for National Statistics to understand better the impact of the pandemic on family outcomes. However, it is ‘surprising that the DWP has not published any more research or analysis on the impact of Covid-19 on children and families in low incomes, bearing in mind its responsibilities for poverty.’

The committee makes a number of other recommendations to Government within its report including:

• A commitment to developing and implementing a long-term, cross-departmental strategy to address child poverty now and in the future.
• For clear, ambitious and measurable objectives and plans for reducing child poverty to be set and for any progress to be reported annually to Parliament.
• For ministers to reaffirm their commitment to measuring poverty through all four measures of children in low-income – relative income, combined low income and material deprivation, absolute income and persistent poverty.

'There needs to be clear leadership and a strategy'

Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee Stephen Timms, Labour MP for East Ham, said, ‘Children growing up in the UK are far more likely to be living in poverty than adults. The coronavirus pandemic has only made matters worse for families who were already struggling to get by. If a generation of young people facing poorer educational outcomes and chronic health problems are to be lifted out of poverty, there needs to be clear leadership and a strategy driven from the top to ensure that every part of Government is focused on tackling the problems that they face.

‘Ministers told us that they are focused on the absolute measure of poverty. But anyone who uses only one measure of poverty is missing out on the important information provided by the whole range of measures that DWP itself produces. We were concerned by the narrowness of their focus.

‘The Government’s published statistics on families in low income are so slow to produce that they still don’t cover the pandemic—even though HMRC and DWP hold a vast trove of real time information about people’s incomes. The Government needs to make much greater use of the information it already has to publish a dashboard of child income-related poverty indicators that’s closer to real time.

‘At the moment, the Government has no strategy and no measurable objectives against which it can be held to account. How can it hope to reduce child poverty when it doesn’t have a plan?’

The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) backed the committee’s calls for a ‘cross-departmental poverty reduction plan’.

Chief executive Alison Garnham said, ‘Warm words about levelling up are not enough when child poverty is climbing and will climb higher if universal credit is cut and the cost of living crisis bites. Now is the time for the Government to show that it will not turn its back on children in low-income families but will act to protect them from the toxic, lifelong effects of poverty. 

‘The committee is right to insist on a cross-departmental poverty-reduction plan with clear targets and championed from Number 10. Without that focus and commitment, rising poverty will prove to be a ticking time bomb for children and for our wider prosperity.’

• The Work and Pensions Commitee's new report is available here