By Richard McKeever
Speaking at the Conference Into 2010 The European Year Against Poverty Financial Secretary to the Treasury Stephen Timms MP called on campaigners, community organisations and faith groups to join local and national government in a “partnership of equals” to end child poverty over the next 10 years.
He reaffirmed the government’s commitment to end child poverty by 2020 and outlined the significant progress that has been made over the last decade but he accepted that much more needed to be done if the target is to be reached.
The focus on poverty across Eurpoe offered by the European Year Against Poverty will provide an opportunity to develop existing work both in government and at the grass roots level which will help to build a movement to really push on and meet the target Stephen Timms said.
Speaking at the same event Jean Lambert MEP was perhaps less positive about the likliehood of real progress through legislation – but again talked about the progress that can be made through community based campaigns and projects such as London Citizens. She spoke about the need for a welfare benefit sytem to reflect the real situation experienced by communities experiencing unemployment and the challenges of the global recession. Significantly she called for strutural causes of inequality to be considered at the European level – not just responding to the effects.
A greater equality of income was an emerging theme in the discussion and will be something we will be considering in further blog posts over the coming months.
