Child Poverty: Ethnicity

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, for securing this debate and for the powerful challenge with which he kicked it off. The picture painted by these ONS statistics is both politically unacceptable and deeply sad. I note the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, about the educational results in the north-east and I look forward to seeing more action to support my region. However, what struck me most in this report was the clear reminder that child poverty has a disproportionate impact on certain minority-ethnic communities in the UK. Noble Lords have referred to the fact that children from Pakistani and Bangladeshi households are the most likely to live in low income; a higher proportion of children in black and other UKME households are more likely to be living in low income; and children in Asian households are two and a half times as likely as the national average to be in persistent low income. That is huge. These figures came out in February last year, before the pandemic even kicked in, showing that, even by that point, progress in the UK had stalled.

We know that, when kids grow up in poverty, there is a greater risk that all areas of their lives will be adversely affected. This includes lower grades and fewer opportunities and, later on, lower wages and poorer health. However, the Government are still sticking with policies, such as those outlined by my noble friend Lady Lister, that have already resulted in 4.3 million of our children growing up in poverty, and they are still planning to cut another £20 a week for millions of families in September, which will make things worse still. Given this evidence that poverty is not equally distributed, can the Minister tell us what assessment the Government have made of whether and, if so, how that £20 cut will disproportionately hit black, Asian and other UKME people?

We know that kids cannot learn well on an empty stomach. Just this week, new government data showed that 500,000 more children became eligible for free school meals during the first year of the pandemic—more than 11,000 children each week. However, again, this is not evenly distributed. The 2020 ONS figures showed that black pupils were the most overrepresented group in the free school meals population, so can the Minister tell us what the picture is for black pupils now that we have had a year of the pandemic?

The Government plan to give food and activities to children eligible for free school meals, though during just half of the summer holidays. Why will they not give cash transfers for free school meals to ensure that families get the full value of this support and can buy the food and activities best suited to their children? As has been mentioned by other noble Lords, do the Government plan to extend eligibility for free school meals to all children from a household getting universal credit or with no recourse to public funds?

We need action to tackle child poverty. We need reform of our social security system to give everyone the help that they need. However, we also need action to target structural inequalities, including differential rates of poverty, unemployment, low pay, job insecurity and so much more. How will the Government address those underlying problems? Indeed, how will they identify them? Labour suggested various ways, such as a race equality Act or a strategy. If the Government do not like those ideas, that is fine, but what are their ideas? How will they identify the problems and address them? I look forward to the Minister’s reply.