{"id":25074,"date":"2025-07-10T20:59:36","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T17:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=25074"},"modified":"2025-07-10T20:59:36","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T17:59:36","slug":"england-children-almost-living-in-dickensian-poverty-levels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=25074","title":{"rendered":"England: Children ‘almost living in Dickensian poverty levels’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Children in England are living in \u201calmost Dickensian levels of poverty\u201d where deprivation has become the norm, the country\u2019s children\u2019s commissioner has said, insisting that the two-child benefit cap should be scrapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young people have reported experiencing no water for showers, rats chewing through their walls and mouldy bedrooms, among many examples in a report into the \u201ccrisis of hardship\u201d plaguing the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Children in England are being deprived of the basics<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dame Rachel de Souza said she had seen a significant change in the way young people talk about their lives since she took over as children\u2019s commissioner four years ago, and that \u201cissues that were traditionally seen as \u2018adult\u2019 issues are now being felt strongly by children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe children shared harrowing accounts of hardship, with some living in near-Dickensian poverty,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are not talking about \u2018poverty\u2019 as an abstract concept, but about not having the things most people would consider basic: a safe home that is not moldy or rat-infested, with a bed big enough to lie down in, \u2018luxury\u2019 foods like bacon, a place to do their homework, heating, privacy in the bathroom and being able to wash up, inviting friends over and not having to travel hours to get to school.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report (“Press Notice: Children are living in \u2018Dickensian levels\u2019 of poverty without their basic needs being met<\/a>“), Children\u2019s Commissioner warns\u00a0 said it was \u201cdeeply worrying how often children seemed to accept these inadequate situations as normal or to have alarmingly low expectations of what they should be entitled to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that, in \u201cone of the richest societies in the world,\u201d people in power \u201cshould be ashamed that children are growing up knowing that their future is determined by their financial situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.5m children in poverty<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labour\u2019s flagship child poverty strategy has been shelved until at least the autumn as it faces growing pressure to scrap the two-child limit on universal credit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday, the education secretary said the government\u2019s recent shift in focus on welfare changes would make it harder to implement the policy, raising concerns it may not be added to the strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The limit, which came into force under the Conservatives in April 2017, limits child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in most households. The Child Poverty Action Group estimates that 109 children are pushed into poverty every day because of the limit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that abolishing the policy would cost the government around \u00a33.4 billion a year and lift 500,000 children out of relative poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did the Children\u2019s Commissioner call for?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Souza said that \u201cthere is no quick fix to ending child poverty\u201d, but it was \u201cvery clear that any strategy for child poverty must be based on the abolition of the two-child limit\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commissioner\u2019s report, based on the experiences of 128 children aged between six and 18 across the country between January and March this year, highlighted a range of concerns, including a lack of access to quality, healthy food and living in cramped and poor conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Souza also called for a \u201ctriple lock\u201d on child-related benefits to ensure they keep pace with rising prices, reforms to ensure families are not housed in temporary accommodation with breakfast for more than the legal limit of six weeks, and free bus travel for all school-aged children in England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responding to the report, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the school leaders\u2019 union NAHT, said that teachers \u201care increasingly running food banks and drop-in centres, providing food vouchers and even offering use of laundries, but this should not be necessary and schools cannot tackle all the underlying causes of child poverty\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he supported the commissioner\u2019s call for action and automatic enrolment for free meals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Children in England are living in \u201calmost Dickensian levels of poverty\u201d where deprivation has become the norm, the country\u2019s children\u2019s commissioner has said, insisting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[818,390],"tags":[3526,484,989,216],"class_list":["post-25074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-politics","tag-children","tag-england","tag-poverty","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25076,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25074\/revisions\/25076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}