UNICEF: Child Poverty Rankings

Lord Bird Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

We certainly know that it is prevalent, but I have already laid out the measures we have taken. There has obviously been quite a debate this afternoon about the statistics. The Government published The Best Start for Life: A Vision for the 1,001 Critical Days in March 2021. I reassure the noble Baroness that we recognise that the early start for children is incredibly important. There is a range of initiatives to help with that issue, which of course is linked to poverty.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

Are the Government aware that most of the people we are talking about—the children—inherit poverty? It crosses the generations. When will we move a lot of the effort into breaking poverty passing from one generation to another? That is where the money really needs to be spent, to bring about social transformation in every sense.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The noble Lord is of course right, and I was very pleased to wind up his debate last week. Perhaps I can be helpful by saying that, compared with 2010, there are over 1 million fewer workless households in the UK, the number of children growing up in homes where no one works has fallen by 680,000, and 1.8 million more children are living in a home where at least one person works. However, the point he makes is incredibly important: we have to stop this intergenerational worklessness issue.