Around half of all children in Tower Hamlets, Barking and Dagenham and Newham were living below the poverty line in the lead up to the pandemic. These new statistics, published by End Child Poverty, also reveal that these boroughs had the highest rates in the country during the period between April 2019 and March 2020. Local London Assembly Member, Unmesh Desai AM, has warned that these “alarming figures” show that child poverty is becoming “the new normal in East London”.
With research showing that almost two-fifths of London’s children were living in poverty before the COVID-19 outbreak hit, Mr Desai is also calling for the Government to fully include the capital in what the Government says is its ‘levelling- up’ agenda.
End Child Poverty’s research has attributed the high cost of housing as a key driver behind these numbers, which place the capital above every other region of the UK in terms of child poverty levels. The average rate across the country during 2019/2020 was 31%.
In March 2020, the Government raised Local Housing Allowance rates to cover the bottom 30% of rents. However, Mr Desai believes that Ministers must boost this further to encompass up to 50% of local rent levels, to prevent more families from falling into arrears to private landlords.
He is also urging the Government to make wider reforms to the welfare system, such as an increase to child benefits, the scrapping of the two child-limit and formal five-week waiting period on Universal Credit payments, and a permanent extension to the weekly £20 uplift.
Local London Assembly Member, Unmesh Desai AM, said:
“It is tragic and shameful that half of our children in the East London community have been plunged into poverty. They are being neglected by the Government who seem keen to give off the impression that London’s streets are paved with gold.
“These alarming figures provide yet another wake-up call to Ministers that prove that after a decade of austerity, the state is failing to fulfil its duty of care for vulnerable people in our society.
“We must remember that these findings reflect the situation before the pandemic, which has since exacerbated social inequalities and the financial struggles local families have been facing.
“Make no mistake, child poverty is sadly becoming a new normal in our community. We need the Government to take immediate action and throw our children a lifeline by fixing the broken welfare system”.
Notes to editors
- The latest research from End Child Poverty showing that 56% of children in Tower Hamlets were living in poverty, alongside 50% of children in Newham and 48% in Barking and Dagenham, after housing costs were considered, between April 2019 and March 2020 can be found here. These figures reflect the number of children living in settings/ households with below 60% of the median income, after housing costs are taken into account;
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The same research shows that 38% of children in London were living below the poverty line during this period and that the capital has the highest child poverty rates in the UK;
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In April 2020, the Government raised Local Housing Allowance rates to cover the bottom 30% of rents. When introduced in 2008, Local Housing Allowance was set to cover up to the 50th percentile, or the median, rents of an area;
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Unmesh Desai AM is the London Assembly Member for City and East (covering Barking and Dagenham, Newham, Tower Hamlets and the City of London).