Failure on child poverty targets is ‘moral disgrace’

from the Belfast Telegraph

The Government will be forced to admit tomorrow that it is not on track to meet its target of halving child poverty by 2010, sparking anger from campaigners who blame the lack of progress for the wider malaise blighting British childhood.

The publication of the annual poverty statistics is expected to reveal the Government is falling short of its ambition to tackle the problem, despite changes to the child tax credit and benefits system over the past two years. Campaigners have called for an additional £3bn to be directed towards lifting 1.7 million children out of poverty.

"It's a moral disgrace that we still have one of the worst child poverty records in Europe," said Kate Green, Child Poverty Action Group's chief executive. "Other countries do better, so why should British children suffer? We can end our child poverty shame and we must."

The figures will be made public a day after the publication of a damning report into the state of childhood in the UK which paints a dismal picture of a society that routinely breaches the rights of its children, demonises young people and detains more underage offenders than any other country in western Europe.

At the root of these wider problems is a failure to tackle the growing gap between rich and poor – a failure which is having highly detrimental effects on the life chances of the neediest children, concluded the report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child from the four UK children's commissioners.

Sir Al Aynsley-Green, England's children's commissioner, said: "Poverty is, in our view, the single most pernicious influence that is blighting the lives and prospects of our young people. We are one of the richest countries in the world. Yet Unicef has found that we have some of the highest levels of poverty. Poverty underpins most of the other social issues we are concerned with."

Calling for the Convention on the Rights of the Child to be incorporated into UK law so that children's rights are recognised and legally binding, the report outlines how children's rights have worsened in many respects since the last time the UN committee reported on the Government's record in 2002. In other areas, it says, there has been no improvement.

Warning that there is a "widely held fear of young people" in the UK, the report says: "The incessant portrayal of children as thugs and yobs" not only reinforces the fears of the public but also influences policy and legislation."

Urging the Government to make "urgent reforms" to the juvenile justice system, the children's commissioners point out that the age of criminal responsibility is among the lowest in Europe: eight in Scotland, 10 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Custody is not being used as a last resort, particularly in England and Wales where there are currently 2,837 children in custody, they warn. The policy on the use of Asbos for children also comes under fire, with the commissioners arguing that "inappropriate, prohibitive and punitive conditions" had been attached to Asbos which many children found difficult to comply with.