By Alex Klaushofer
Charities and campaigners have called on the government to take urgent action to prevent families sinking into poverty ahead of this month’s Budget.
Charities and campaigners have called on the government to take urgent action to prevent families sinking into poverty ahead of this month’s Budget.Aid agency Oxfam, which is better known for its work overseas, has stepped up its campaigning on domestic poverty with the publication of a report claiming that Britain in recession is becoming a nation of ‘Freds’ — people who are forgotten, ripped off, excluded and debt-ridden.
‘We created the character of Fred to remind policy-makers that in the Budget they have to think about what they are going to do to help people like Fred,’ Antonia Bance, deputy director of the charity’s UK poverty programme, told Public Finance.
The report, Close to home — UK poverty and the economic downturn, published on April 8, called on the government to provide a ‘people’s bail-out’. This included an emergency increase in benefits, a more progressive tax system and the creation of jobs in environment and construction.
Save the Children this week launched an unprecedented UK programme of grants of £100 to £200 to help families pay for food and other basics. The charity hopes to extend the scheme, currently able to support around 900 families with a fund of £150,000, and to distribute £1m to 5,000 families.
‘This is the first time we’re actively putting cash into the hands of parents,’ said a spokeswoman. ‘We’re seeing more and more families really struggling to support their kids.’
The announcements increased the pressure on the government to take strong measures in the Budget, widely seen as a last opportunity to meet its target of halving child poverty by 2010.
Research published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in February calculated that current policies would lead child poverty to fall from 2.9 million to 2.3 million, missing the target by 600,000. The government would need to invest an extra £4.2bn a year to meet the target, it estimated.
But campaigners insisted that meeting the target is still possible with an investment of around £3bn in benefits and tax credits for the poorest families.
Kate Green, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, a member of the Campaign to End Child Poverty coalition, said: ‘It would be a very good fiscal measure. We know that the poorest families, if they get extra money, very quickly go out and spend it in local businesses.’
Bance said: ‘It’s always been clear that meeting the 2010 target would be very difficult after the 2005 target was missed.’ But she added that there was ‘still an opportunity’ to meet the 2010 target if an additional £3bn was invested.
The call comes in the week that London Mayor Boris Johnson launched a new charity to help 600,000 children living in poverty.
The Mayor’s Fund will spend £1.5m in 2009 on projects to help disadvantaged young people. It aims to have an annual turnover of £20m by 2013.
