16 December 2010

Frank Field v. Unicef

Laura Jones

Researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies have analysed the impact on households in London of the changes in taxes and benefits due to come into effect by 2014-15: - The increases in taxes and cuts in benefits and tax credits due to take effect between now and 2014/15 hit lower income Londoners harder than those on higher incomes. For instance they amount to 5.7% of net income for the poorest fifth of Londoners, on average, compared to 1.7% for the richest fifth.- Roughly half of poor children and one third of children just above the poverty line are in families that report they are receiving housing benefit. Furthermore, almost 90% of all children living in families receiving housing benefit in London are in poverty or just above the poverty line. Meanwhile, the coalition’s poverty tsar, the Labour MP Frank Field, has published his review of child poverty, The Foundation Years: Preventing Poor Children from Becoming Poor Adults. It calls for greater investment in early years education and argues that funding should be both shifted towards the first five years of children's lives and weighted to help the most disadvantaged. It also calls for all disadvantaged children to be provided with affordable, full-time, graduate-led childcare from the age of two. So far, so reasonable. But at the same time Field also thinks, as his subtitle implies, that we may as well give up on trying to alleviate child poverty: