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On Wednesday, the new Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson told the Labour conference that the future lives of children shouldn’t come down to “luck” and that “no child” should grow up in poverty in modern Britain.
Government estimates in April, for 2022/23, found that was the situation for 4.3 million youngsters – 30% of all children in the UK – and that almost 70% of them lived in working families. The number was up 700,000 on the previous year, with high inflation and the war in Ukraine blamed.
Gordon Brown, writing in The Guardian in May, suggested the reasons went far deeper, and had existed for far longer. Mass unemployment and social security cuts under Margaret Thatcher, Brexit, and COVID-19 all played a part before the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion. Then regular freezes in child benefit began, the former PM continued, blanket cuts in means-tested benefits, a freeze in working-age benefits, the removal of the “family premium” element of tax credits, and the limitation of children’s benefits to two children per family.
Although Keir Starmer’s first King’s Speech, in July, contained no specific measures to address child poverty, reportedly “angering” dozens of his own MPs, a Child Poverty Taskforce was announced. It will hear from struggling families, front-line staff, and charities to form a strategy to be revealed in Spring 2025.
While the news was well-received, organisations supporting single parents worry the voices of single parents will be left out of the conversation. Some 44% of children in lone- parent families in the UK are living in poverty, compared to 25% for children in two-parent families.
“Policies on alleviating poverty aren’t aimed at single parents,” Hannah Cascarino, a single parent to an eight-year-old daughter who is currently being assessed for autism, explained to Byline Times. “They’re aimed toward a two-person household.”
Working 15 hours a week, and receiving disability benefits and Universal Credit, Hannah is desperately trying to hold everything together for her child, but finding it overwhelmingly difficult.
I’ve had to use food banks and rely on the school for uniform. I’ve used the household support fund to buy food and pay for electricity, and our local fund for a new boiler and fridge when mine broke. There is no money spare
Hannah Cascarino, single parent
Ten single parent organisations have written to Phillipson, and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Liz Kendall, urging the Government to include single parents in the taskforce strategy meetings.
“We instigated this joint letter to the ministers because we see time and again single parents are overlooked when policy is being developed,” Ruth Talbot of Single Parent Rights, told Byline Times.
Single parents can’t keep being ignored when policy is designed, or we will keep being pushed into poverty
Ruth Talbot, Single Parent Rights
Talbot blames “the political choices made by the previous government” for the stark numbers of children in lone-parent families being in poverty, noting that austerity policies “disproportionately impacted single parent families”.
Satwat Rehman of One Parent Families Scotland, who also signed the letter, told Byline Times that policies like the benefit cap, two-child policy, and conditionality and sanctions “actually increased child poverty”.
For the 66% of single parents who are employed in the UK, their jobs aren’t necessarily a road out of poverty. They often deal with discrimination or inflexibility in the workplace that prevents them from progressing and making more money, or they fall through a social security net that doesn’t catch single parent families.
According to Talbot, 73% of families with children that get Universal Credit are single parents, meaning they are disproportionately impacted by social security policies.
Over half of those impacted by the two-child benefit limit, created to increase the number of people in work, are single parents, and 25% have a child under three.
“It’s similar with the benefit cap,” Talbot said. “Almost three quarters of those impacted are single parent families, and this isn’t surprising when you realise that the £793 that families must earn to avoid being capped is identical for both single parents and couples, meaning – in effect – single parents are having to earn double what an individual in a couple must to avoid being capped, and they must do this with no support from a partner.”
Talbot describes the the social security system as a “safety net riddled with holes”.
As an example she cited the increase in work requirements for lead carers, the majority of whom are single parents, which came into effect in May 2024, saying it didn’t safeguard single parents like it did couples. If work requirements aren’t met, the parent may receive a reduction in benefit payments.