Child Poverty: Ethnicity

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, for instigating this debate and shall focus my comments on the section on page 6 of the report highlighting low income and material deprivation, the self-reported inability of individuals or households to afford 21 particular goods and activities. For children, these include, in order of weighting and priority, outdoor space or facilities nearby to play safely, a hobby or leisure activity and organised activity outside school each week. These factors, when considered with wider concepts of material deprivation, demonstrate that children in Bangladeshi households are the most likely of all ethnic groups to come off worst. Their material deprivation scores in the ONS study before the Grand Committee today stand at an appalling 29%. This is almost three times as high as white households.

The importance of play and investment in green spaces so that children can play safely in the community must be strengthened in the new planning system which will come before Parliament shortly. We must transform lives and communities through sport, recreation and physical activity for all our children. We must increase school sport and PE provision. We must tackle the growing crisis of obesity. We must improve teacher training in this context, especially in primary schools. We must transform lives and rebuild the younger generation, who carried the greatest burden of the coronavirus epidemic for the rest of us. They suffered from obesity, poverty and, above all, boredom, being cooped up with escalating mental health issues, to protect old generations and the most vulnerable from even greater hospitalisation and death rates. We must recognise the vital contribution of an active lifestyle to alleviate poverty, and we need policies for the communities which are most affected by material deprivation.

For all this, we urgently need a Cabinet Minister for children. We need the development of a youth well-being strategy that considers the wide discrepancies in our society highlighted in this report. They are heart-breaking. The interests of children are served by many government departments, local authorities and the voluntary sector, yet co-ordination of policy formulation and policy initiatives is too weak. It is time for action. It is time for a voice for children at the cabinet table.