Peter Lazenby
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THE number of children living in poverty in working households has risen by 1,350 a week since 2010, when the Tories took power in coalition with their Liberal Democrat collaborators, the TUC said today.
A “toxic combination” of pay stagnation, a growth in insecure work and cuts to social security benefits have forced an additional 900,000 children into official poverty, despite their families having at least one working member.
A campaigning children’s charity said the creation of such poverty was a “political choice” by the government and called on the next administration to make the political choice to end it.
The legacy of child poverty left by 14 years of Tory rule is three million children in working households living below the breadline.
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “No child in Britain should be growing up below the breadline.
“But under the Conservatives, we have seen a huge rise in working households being pushed into poverty.
“A toxic combination of pay stagnation, rising insecure work and cuts to social security have had a devastating impact on family budgets.
“We urgently need an economic reset and a government that will make work pay. Reducing child poverty must be a priority in the years ahead.”
According to the TUC, wages are worth less in real terms today than in 2008 and if pay had risen in line with inflation, the average worker would be £14,000 a year better off.
Its analysis also shows that the number of people in insecure, low-paid work has grown by almost one million to a record 4.1 million during the Tories’ time in office.
In a separate study, Aberlour Scottish Children’s Charity revealed that one in four children in Scotland and one in three in the UK now lives in poverty.
Launching the charity’s manifesto to end child poverty, chief executive SallyAnn Kelly said: “Poverty is a political choice, but children do not choose to grow up in poverty.
“We are calling on the next UK government to make the political choice to end child poverty and invest in our children and young people.”
