The Government’s record on child poverty in the North East has come under fire after figures showed growing hardship for many youngsters in the region.
Newcastle Central MP Chi Onwurah used Prime Minister’s Questions to ask Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden to justify the Government’s record over the last 13 years, a period which has seen a previous decline in child poverty in the North East go into reverse and become significantly the worst affected area in the country. Ms Onwurah’s attack on the Government’s record - which was rejected by Mr Dowden, making his first stand-in appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions since taking over as Rishi Sunak’s deputy last month - was part of a sustained attack by Labour over the issue of child poverty led by the party’s deputy leader Angela Rayner.
Figures from the End Child Poverty group last year showed 47.8% of children in Ms Onwurah’s Newcastle Central constituency are living in poverty, the constituency having seen the third largest increase in child poverty in the UK since 2014. Absolute child poverty has fallen marginally across the UK since 2014 but has increased in every local authority in the North East.
Read more: North East unemployment edges closer to the national average
Ms Onwurah said: “Half the children in Newcastle Central are growing up in poverty. Over the last five years the delivery of food parcels to North East children has risen by 250%. The number of North East children who are homeless rose by 50% last year.
“On average their parent’s wages will have fallen by £1,000 and if any of this affects a child’s mental health, they face a five- month wait for treatment. Why is this Government making it so hard for our kids?”
Mr Dowden - who had earlier faced accusations from Angela Rayner that the Government had “taken a wrecking ball to measures by the last Labour government to eradicate child poverty” - said Ms Onwurah and her Labour colleagues needed “a correction on the facts.” He said: “We’ve actually lifted 1.7m people out of absolute poverty altogether. That is the track record of this Government.”
The proportion of North East children living in poverty has increased from 26% in 20214/5 to 38% in 2020-21. Over that period, the region went from having one of the best records on child poverty in England to being significantly the worst.
Anna Turley, chairwoman of the North East Child Poverty Commission, said: “‘Any Government committed to levelling up opportunities and living standards needs to understand the reality of what is happening on the ground for families, both in Newcastle and right across the North East. After almost a decade of steeply rising child poverty in every part of our region, the cost of living crisis is exacerbating longstanding challenges for so many communities – and the overwhelming message from all the organisations we work with is they are experiencing unsustainable levels of demand for support for the growing number of families now facing acute hardship.
“In what remains one of the wealthiest countries in the world, it cannot be right so many parents and carers are turning to charity – or getting deeper into debt – to meet the most basic needs of their families, with increasing numbers of those seeking help being in work. This is not only placing the most enormous strain on hundreds of community organisations working tirelessly throughout our region, it is also limiting the opportunities and life chances of our children who are being held back by poverty and all the barriers this can bring.
“There is nothing inevitable about child poverty in the North East, but a starting point is a Government which recognises the scale of the challenge we face in this region and has a joined-up plan to tackle it.”
READ NEXT:
