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Why aren’t the child poverty and welfare reform bills better aligned?
By Will Horwitz | November 6, 2009
A couple of days ago shadow work and pensions minister Andrew Selous mentioned both our work on the informal economy and the community allowance campaign during the committee stage of the Child Poverty bill. It’s always nice to see a bit of lobbying reflected in what politicians say, but it also reveals something of the debate around poverty and welfare reform.
At this stage of the bill’s passage, a small group of MPs is considering every sentence in incredible detail. Yesterday they’d reached the section of the child poverty bill that will make it compulsory for every local authority to assess the needs of children living in poverty in their region. And Andrew Selous’ contribution was about the extent of that assessment.
He was arguing for it to be compulsory to assess not only the family income of the poorest children, and their takeup of benefits and tax credits, but also the extent to which jobs were available and being created in their area, and their ‘family resilience.’
He believes that to beat child poverty we need, above all, ‘more and better jobs’ - ie that getting people off benefits and into work is the best (only?) way to tackle poverty. A focus on the transition off benefits and into works sounds like the kind of thing that should be in the Welfare Reform Bill - slightly more advanced through parliament, with a focus on coercing people into work that seems far removed from the child poverty bill, with its focus on income level.
It’s good that Selous is trying to force the issue of that transition into the child poverty bill, but seems a missed opportunity that the bills aren’t just better aligned in the first place. He recognises, as we’ve been saying, that “the challenge of getting into work from being out of work is huge. The move from not working and being on benefits into full-time work is an enormous step - sometimes almost a step too far that many people are not able to make in one leap.” Why hasn’t this recognition, particularly during a recession and with rising unemployment, been included in the welfare reform bill?
Topics: Benefits, Child Poverty, Communication, Informal Economy, Regeneration, Research, Welfare, employment |
We spent a week debating the way poverty is portrayed in the media, generating over 20 fascinating posts from a wide range of authors. 
November 10th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Bravo to that.
Additionally, people who are on benefits for disability (frequently the target of tabloid headlines and politician’s rants) may never be able to move into full-time work. The current government has made their challenges even larger, as the new ESA system is enormously backlogged, and assesses people based on a computer system rather than interviews by doctors.