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Child poverty is one of the most profound injustices in modern Britain.

This makes the current statistics particularly troubling. Nearly one in three children in the UK still live in relative poverty after housing costs. The persistence of child poverty stands as a stark reminder that we are failing to protect our most vulnerable, but also a reminder of the opportunity we have in front of us that we must grasp with both hands.

represents a welcome re-engagement with this issue. It brings together welfare, housing, health, and education actions under a clearer cross-government mission than we have seen in recent years. It includes important steps, most notably the removal of the two-child benefit cap and avoids some of the overpromising of earlier strategies

The publication of the Strategy is a necessary and overdue moment. Child poverty has been rising for a decade, with predictable consequences for children’s health, education, and life chances.

There is much in this Strategy to welcome. It recognises that poverty is multidimensional. It acknowledges the importance of housing costs, food insecurity, and instability. It introduces, for the first time, a formal “deep material poverty” measure alongside relative low income after housing costs. This is so important as it connects poverty to a child’s lived experience. The Strategy also accepts, implicitly, that schools and public services are now operating under pressures that actively undermine children’s wellbeing.

However, while the Strategy is directionally sound, it is ultimately not equal to the scale or urgency of the problem it describes.

Poverty is lived, not calculated

For a child, poverty is not abstract. It is overcrowded or temporary housing, disrupted sleep, and chronic stress in the household. It is food insecurity and reliance on cheap, high-calorie, low-nutrient-density, ultra-processed food because it is what is affordable and accessible. It is missing school trips, avoiding social situations, lacking access to green space, sport, or enrichment, and growing up with a quiet but persistent sense of shame.

As Dame Rachel de Souza, our current Children’s Commissioner for England, said in her powerful and passionate speech at the recent Barnardo’s and King’s Fund ‘Healthiest Generation’ event: “This is not their shame, this is our shame”.

The Strategy acknowledges many of these downstream effects but too often treats them as consequences to be managed rather than as the core mechanisms through which poverty damages development. Housing, food environments, transport, digital access, and parental mental health are central concerns. They are the pathways through which income poverty becomes lifelong disadvantage.

Investing in children offers one of the strongest returns on public spending

Investing in children and young people is both a moral imperative and one of the most reliable ways to secure long-term economic returns. The evidence consistently shows that spending early in life delivers far greater benefits than later expenditure to address the consequences of unmet need.

In England, integrated early years provision has demonstrated particularly strong value. Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that every £1 invested in Sure Start children’s centres generated around £2.05 in economic benefits, through reduced demand on health and social care, improved educational outcomes, and higher lifetime earnings. Across a single cohort, this amounted to approximately £2.8 billion in savings and additional tax revenue. International evidence mirrors these findings, with high-quality early childhood programmes delivering returns of $4 to $9 for every $1 invested, driven by gains across education, health, welfare, and justice systems.

There are also immediate fiscal benefits. Childhood poverty is associated with higher use of emergency healthcare, poorer mental health, and increased pressure on safeguarding and crisis services. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and The King’s Fund have shown that this translates into substantial avoidable costs for the NHS and other public services.

Preventive investment is consistently more effective and more economical than reactive spending once harm has occurred. Taken together, investment in children should be viewed as essential economic and social infrastructure, not optional expenditure.

Where the Strategy’s impact really comes from

The Strategy states that it will lift around 550,000 children out of relative low income after housing costs by the last year of their term. That headline figure matters. It is worth being explicit ����Vlog what is driving that reduction. The majority of the projected reduction is driven by a single decision: the removal of the two-child limit in Universal Credit. This change alone accounts for 450,000. Other measures, while not irrelevant, make comparatively modest contributions.

This is not a criticism of removing the two-child limit. It is one of the most evidence-based and morally coherent policy choices available. But it does expose a central weakness in the Strategy: without that one change, the remaining package would do relatively little to shift the overall picture.

If the Government is serious ����Vlog reducing child poverty in a sustained way, it should be explicit ����Vlog this. Pretending that a broad constellation of smaller initiatives will collectively substitute for bold structural decisions risks misleading both Parliament and the public.

Schools and services as protective environments

One of the most striking omissions in the Strategy is the absence of a coherent plan to rebuild schools and community services as protective environments for children in poverty.

Schools are one of the best levers to pull to effectively support children and families. Unfortunately, they have long been the ‘catch-all’ for so much. They are now expected to absorb the consequences of inequality and poverty, such as food insecurity, housing instability, unmet health needs, family challenges, and much more, often without the staffing, funding, or specialist support required to do so. School nurses, health visitors, and youth resources in the community have been hollowed out over the past decade. Their erosion is not incidental; it actively amplifies the harms of poverty. This must be reversed as a priority.

The Strategy recognises the pressure schools are under, but recognition is not the same as remedy. If the Government wishes schools to be part of the solution, it must adequately resource them and restore the capacity of the services that surround them. Otherwise, schools become the last line of defence rather than a stable platform for opportunity.

Two clear recommendations

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health was right to call for two measures that are sadly missing from this Strategy in its position statement (https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/generated-pdf/document/Child-health-inequalities-driven-by-child-poverty-in-the-UK—position-statement.pdf):

First, the appointment of a Cabinet-level Minister for Children and Young People. Child poverty cuts across welfare, housing, health, education, transport, and local government. Without senior, cross-departmental leadership, responsibility remains fragmented and outcomes diluted.

Second, the extension of healthy free school meals to all primary school-aged children. Tying eligibility narrowly to Universal Credit leaves too many children exposed to food insecurity and administrative barriers. Universal provision is simpler, less stigmatising, and more effective. I have taken the liberty of adding ‘healthy’ as it is nutritious food that supports the health and development of young minds and bodies. I won’t get sidetracked into defining a healthy diet here, but the ����Vlog’s stance is in the ‘further reading section’, which is a good place to start.

We shall see…

The Strategy’s introduction of a deep material poverty metric is its most important innovation. It should also become its most important test.

By the end of this Parliament, there should be a clear answer to a simple question: are fewer children going without the essentials they need to grow, learn, and stay well? If the answer is yes, the Strategy will deserve credit. If the answer is no, no amount of well-intentioned activity will compensate for that failure.

Children growing up in poverty today cannot wait for caution. They need accountable leadership that makes change unavoidable.

I challenge the current Government to be bold and aim to have no children living in deep material poverty by the end of their term. What a legacy that would be.

Summary Box

1. Set clear accountability
Accompany each of these plans, projects, pilots and outcomes with clear timelines and publish a delivery plan that makes responsibility unavoidable.
2. Treat health as core infrastructure
Embed early years, school-based, and community health interventions and education as central components of poverty reduction.
3. Adequately fund child statutory services
In particular, the most support should go to the most vulnerable: children with chronic conditions, children in custody, those supported by child protection services and looked-after children.
4. Fund schools as protective environments
Invest in school nursing, pastoral care, and integrated pathways with health and social care.
5. Be bold
The scale of the challenge is clear. The only option is to aim to eradicate child poverty through a child-centred lens.

Sources and Further Reading:

– https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/long-reads/relationship-poverty-nhs-services
– https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2024-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk
– https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth
– https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/blogs/child-poverty-strategy-mission-led-government-action
– https://ifs.org.uk/publications/short-and-medium-term-effects-sure-start-childrens-outcomes
– https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/news-and-blogs/press-notice-children-are-living-in-dickensian-levels-of-poverty-without-their-basic-needs-being-met-childrens-commissioner-warns/
– https://www.health.org.uk/publications/reports/the-marmot-review-10-years-on
– https://live-penn-impact.pantheon.io/wp-content/uploads/2016/2015/06/Why-Invest-High-Return-on-Investment.pdf
– https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/deep-material-poverty-financial-year-ending-2024/deep-material-poverty-financial-year-ending-2024
– https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/child-health-inequalities-position-statement#rcpch-recommendations-to-reduce-health-inequalities-as-a-result-of-child-poverty
– /eating-a-healthy-diet-and-avoiding-processed-foods/