Child Poverty

Baroness Spielman Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I, also, thank the noble Lady Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for this important debate today. I think we all agree that eliminating child poverty is an important aim. I went into education 25 years ago because I wanted to take forward the education approaches that are most effective with the most disadvantaged children, so I know how much work already goes on in all stages of education to support children in poverty. It was good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Kestenbaum, recognize this.

I have studied the Government’s child poverty strategy and its publications on deep material poverty. The first thing I notice is how hard it is to measure child poverty. Much effort has gone into the new measure. It gets closer than the relative measure to children’s actual experience. Do they have three meals a day, fresh fruit and vegetables, somewhere to do homework, games, toys, and outdoor equipment? Do they live in decent and warm housing? Can they get around on public transport? Can their families cope with an unexpected bill?

First, the measure suggests that there are just over 2 million children in deep material poverty. That is, of course, a concerning figure, but, startlingly, it correlates poorly with the Government’s preferred poverty measure of having less than 60% of median household income after housing costs. More than 70% of children in families below the 60% line are not in deep material poverty and, conversely, more than 40% of the children in deep material poverty are not in households falling below the 60% threshold. This clearly needs more examination and suggests that it is time to retire that arbitrary 60% number. It is good for political point-scoring, but is not very helpful for actual children and their lives.

We know the main risk factors, which the strategy acknowledges. Work, family structure, family size and geography all matter, and there are some striking ethnic disparities. All this is acknowledged, yet so much is ignored or glossed over in the strategy, and I will follow on from the points made by my noble friend Lady Coffey and several others.

First, I must talk about fatherlessness. I am not denigrating single mothers, most of whom make every effort for their children. Yet it is undeniably the case that, on average, children who do not live with their father have worse life outcomes on many fronts. It was good to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Paul of Shepherd’s Bush, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, touch on this. More than half of children are now born outside marriage. Most have cohabiting parents when they are born, but cohabitation is less stable than marriage, so too few children are growing up with both natural parents, and it is obviously unrealistic to believe that state support, however good, can entirely compensate for a parent-shaped gap in a child’s life. There are countries that have significant incentives for parents to marry and remain in stable unions. We have disincentives in tax, welfare and social housing, so it is worrying that the strategy does not even mention marriage, let alone set out policies to reverse a damaging social trend that is directly responsible for a lot of child poverty.

The strategy skates fairly lightly past at least 500,000 children—although published estimates vary—in families that have no recourse to public funds. Almost certainly, these children make up a hefty slice of the 2.1 million in deep material poverty. Some families will get leave to remain, in which case the full range of benefits and support will become available to them, and some will not and will leave. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Sahota, noted, these children’s interests are surely best served by resolving their cases swiftly. It is none the less a puzzlingly large number of children affected.

Linked to this, there is no mention of cultural differences that contribute to making some ethnic groups much heavier users of welfare than others and making their children more likely to be poor. Relatively few women of Somali origin work. Estimates range from 10% to 24% compared with over 70% of white women. Bangladeshi and Pakistani women are also far less likely to be earning. For balance, I point out that Haredi Jewish households are also particularly likely to depend on benefits. The strategy is silent on a real issue of fairness. Is it reasonable to expect families where both parents work to provide for their children to pay taxes to support families where at least one parent may be choosing not to? If not, how will the Government adjust the relevant incentives?

Improving parent skills should be a much bigger piece of the jigsaw. The labour market values mathematical competence, so improving numeracy helps. For many families in poverty from immigrant backgrounds, it would be hard for the adults to earn a decent wage until they speak better English. Many parents who have grown up in countries with more limited education systems will need some good vocational education to help them move beyond insecure casual work. As the noble Lord, Lord John of Southwark, noted in his excellent speech, a child poverty strategy is ultimately self-defeating if it ushers children of poorer families into adult lives of worklessness and dependency. Making sure that these children move from education into proper jobs and stay in sustained employment is critical.

I do not want to dismiss the Government’s measures, but I think I have shown where the real differences lie between these Benches and the Government. Too many current policies are sticking plasters to treat symptoms, not cures or preventive measures. They do not solve the underlying problems—the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, made some important points here. In essence, child poverty arises when a child’s parents cannot or do not earn enough to provide for their child. Of course, there will always be a small proportion of families who, for good reason, will not be able to achieve this, but most could. By definition, anyone over 21 working full-time on the national minimum wage will be earning 60% of national median income. Therefore, there are an awful lot of children in families that do not have the equivalent of even one full-time wage coming in.

If we are serious about eliminating child poverty, we need to focus more on better skills and a growing economy that generates better jobs and higher real wages, plus the kinds of support that help families become more secure and independent—such as the debt advice service mentioned by my noble friend Lady Coffey and the parenting service described by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft—I think I was the first person to talk publicly about the problem of children starting school in nappies, almost a decade ago during my time at Ofsted.

Economic growth is the most powerful lever to reduce poverty, but, sadly, the Government’s current policies are increasing the welfare burden while disincentivising work for an increasing proportion of the population—which in turn constrains economic growth and hence the capacity to fund benefits. I warn the Government here. The social contract that underpins the welfare system requires mutual trust and cohesion, which is more than a little frayed, especially in relation to disability-linked benefits for adults and children. The collective willingness to fund a comprehensive welfare system depends on those paying having confidence that all but a small minority will contribute to the system through most of their working lives, that claims will be genuine and that decision-makers will be effective in gatekeeping the system to prevent abuses.

I remind noble Lords that the benefits bill this year will be about £330 billion, which is around £11,000 per household. Since more than half of households are now net recipients of benefits, the annual bill paid by the minority of households who make a net contribution is higher still. We simply cannot afford fraud. So I was not reassured by the reply from the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, to a recent Written Question asked by my noble friend Lady Coffey about the number of prosecutions for benefits fraud since July 2024. All it said was:

“The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost”.


I will finish by asking the Minister four questions. Will the Government set clear targets for moving families that are dependent on benefits towards independence, including parental employment rates and earnings progression, and report regularly against these? Will the Government set targets for successful labour market entry and continuing employment for all young people who grow up in benefit-dependent households and report regularly against them? Will the Government commit to publishing regular comprehensive information about children and families with no recourse to public funds, including their nationalities, how and when they came to Britain, how they are being housed and helped, at what cost, and how their temporary status is being resolved? And linked to my earlier point, will the Government commit to publishing regular updates on the incidence of benefit fraud, on the perpetrators and on the cost to the taxpayer, together with reporting on the effectiveness of steps that are being taken to deter and minimise fraud?

I will end by thanking everyone who has spoken today for recognising that there is a moral imperative here to do what is right for all our children and, above all, to do what is right for them in the long term, as well as in the short term, so that children live the best lives they can for themselves and as parents in their turn.