Child Poverty

Baroness Nargund Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Nargund (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Babudu, and I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Lister for securing this very important debate.

I want to focus my remarks on what I know best: health. Child poverty is not simply a social issue; it is a public health crisis. Unless we address it, we will continue to pay the price for decades to come in poorer health, greater inequality and rising demands on our NHS.

As we have already heard, 31% of children in the UK are living in relative poverty after housing costs. In a classroom of 30 children, that is 10 children whose future health is already being shaped not by their talents, aspirations or potential but by the circumstances into which they were born.

Indeed, the impact of poverty on health begins even before birth. As a doctor, I find the evidence compelling. We know that the intrauterine environment plays a profound role in determining future health. The pioneering work of Professor David Barker of Southampton demonstrated that poor nutrition and deprivation during pregnancy can programme the developing foetus in ways that increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and hypertension in adult life. In other words, poverty leaves a biological imprint before a child has even taken their first breath.

In fact, the first chapter of a child’s health story is written before conception, through the physical and metabolic health of parents. Children born into poverty are more likely to be born with low birth weight. They are less likely to survive their first year of life. As they grow, they face higher rates of asthma, chronic illness, developmental delay and poor mental health. Nearly one in five children are not meeting their expected developmental milestones by the age of two. These outcomes are not inevitable. They are preventable, because they are the predicted consequences of deprivation.

What is striking, both from clinical practice and evidence, is how clearly the pathway runs from wealth to health. When families have sufficient resources, children are healthier. When families are poor, children are sicker. Poverty and ill health reinforce one another. It is a vicious cycle.

The mechanisms are well understood. Housing sits at the top of the list. New data reveals that 104 children in England died between April 2019 and December 2024 with temporary accommodation identified as a contributing factor to their ill health or death, and 76 of those children were under the age of one. These are not simply housing statistics; they are the conditions in which children’s brains and bodies are developing.

I therefore welcome the Government’s commitment to tackling child poverty with their strategy, focusing on economic growth, the expansion of free school meals and breakfast provision, Best Start family hubs, and measures to increase the supply of social housing.

The forthcoming 10-year health plan presents an important opportunity to narrow health inequalities. Community health hubs could become a cornerstone of prevention. But they must be properly staffed, accessible, and equipped not only to diagnose illness but to support well-being, early intervention and family resilience, and they must take the needs of local communities into account.

If we truly wish to build a healthier nation, we must recognise a simple truth: child poverty today becomes adult illness tomorrow. Every child growing up in poverty represents not only a failure of opportunity but a future health inequality waiting to happen. The most effective preventive medicine we can offer is not found in a hospital or clinic, or on a prescription. It is ensuring that every child has enough food to eat, a warm home to live in, and the opportunity to thrive.

Tackling child poverty is not only a moral imperative; it is one of the most powerful health interventions available to us. If today’s child poverty is tomorrow’s adult illness, tackling poverty is one of the most powerful forms of prevention. I therefore ask my noble friend the Minister to urge the Government to place that principle at the heart of their strategy and to work with DHSC.