Child Poverty Action Group Profile picture
Jul 8, 2020 7 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Our response to the #SummerStatement: "The Chancellor’s focus on protecting jobs and supporting people into work is welcome and desperately needed in response to higher unemployment. Extra money for the flexible support fund is great news especially if it can be used...
"...more flexibly for up-front childcare costs, quality training and additional costs needed for job search, work clothing and fares. The existence of this support through the flexible support fund needs to be better publicised so claimants know there is help they can ask for...
"...But in addition the Chancellor needs to recognise that most children in poverty have a working parent so a job itself is not a guaranteed route out of poverty. Extra support with finding a job is welcome, but without more investment in universal credit to make work pay...
"...and in affordable childcare, many pandemic-hit parents will remain locked out of the labour market or in a job that keeps them poor. They certainly won’t be able to eat out to help out...
"...To get the UK back to work and to tackle child poverty, we need good jobs and the childcare services that enable parents to work too - 2nd earners are critical to help families escape in-work poverty...
"...It is disappointing that within a broad range of measures to support people during the immediate aftermath of lockdown and today that there is little that is targeted directly at struggling families...
"...Children need a Covid-19 bonus too – an increase of £10 a week in child benefit would go a long way to protecting families during a period of huge uncertainty and reduce child poverty.” [ends]

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More from @CPAGUK

Oct 4, 2020
The #BenefitCap was first announced #OnThisDay in 2010 by George Osborne at the Conservative party conf. It came in in 2013. It breaks the vital link between the support you need & the support you get from our social security system & pushes kids into poverty [thread] 1/17
Originally the #BenefitCap was based on the premise that non-working households shouldn’t receive more than the average earnings of working households. But this compares incomes with earnings. A working family on £26k could also receive a range of benefits and tax credits. 2/17
The #BenefitCap was then lowered in 2016 and is set at a completely arbitrary level. And this was just as the cost of living was starting to rise. 3/17
Read 17 tweets
Sep 22, 2020
Did you know you can order the Sweet and Maxwell Social Security Legislation volumes from CPAG?

They are a guide to the UK social security system & interpret the legislation for the purpose of appeals against decisions about benefit claims.

Order today bit.ly/35XoFyJ
Volume one covers non-means-tested benefits except for contribution-based jobseeker’s allowance, which is in Volume II. Shop now: bit.ly/2HdzJ0n Image
Volume two covers income-related benefits, with the exception of housing benefit. Shop now: bit.ly/3mEvz25 Image
Read 6 tweets
Aug 25, 2020
Some stories from our latest report, out today, with @churchofengland. Some may sound familiar:

“I lost my job beginning of March and been unable to find a new job as my son’s nursery closed... I am in more debt and struggling to pay bills and feed my son and myself.”
A Dad, Graham, described not being able to cheer his daughter up by giving her money:

“I’ll break down and cry some days, I’ll go to my bedroom and cry, because I can’t give her £20 to go and buy something.”
“They can see there is no money... especially also for the 19-year-old, I don’t want her to know everything that’s happening because she gets very bad panic attacks and anxiety. I try to hide as much as I can from them, but yes, they know.”
Read 8 tweets
Aug 23, 2020
We've been monitoring the social security system during #COVID19 through our Early Warning System - here are some of the issues we're seeing again and again 1/11
1. Universal credit – the main benefit available to low-income families – is not available to everyone, even though working is now much more difficult for many. 2/11
2. There has been no financial support for children (other than free school meal vouchers for a minority). 3/11
Read 11 tweets
Jul 29, 2020
#NationalFoodStrategy We welcome the call for an extension of entitlement to free school meals. Our CEO @alisongcpag: “Extending free school meals to kids whose parents receive universal credit would be a good step forward in protecting most disadvantaged... 1/n
"...but the evidence shows that free school meals for all kids would achieve so much more. When lunch is free for all, children’s school results are boosted, their diet improves and parents struggling to make ends meet have more to spend on nutritious breakfasts & dinners... 2/n
"The support for @MarcusRashford's recent intervention showed there’s a feeling across the UK that we’ve become too mean about providing for children in school. We don’t means-test any other part of the school day so why do we food – so critical for children’s development? 3/4
Read 4 tweets
Jul 20, 2020
Benefit-capped working mother wins test case against DWP's irrational universal credit rules for assessing earnings - Out statement on today's judgment: cpag.org.uk/news-blogs/new…
"Our client is a working single mother who has done everything she can to support her children but has been trapped by the absurd rigidity of universal credit rules which have penalised her for being paid 4-weekly rather than monthly –a circumstance that was beyond her control...
"Far from making work pay, UC left our client humiliated & in financial misery – resorting to food banks to feed her kids... benefit-capped –even though somebody doing exactly the same work, same No of hours at the same pay would be exempt because their employer pays monthly...
Read 4 tweets

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