What is in the UK government’s child poverty strategy?
Keir Starmer has hailed his government’s plan to tackle child poverty as a “moral mission”, with a promise to lift half a million children out of hardship.It is the first such document in more than a decade and was described by the Resolution Foundation thinktank as a “sea change” in Britain’s approach to children in poverty.The plan was promised in spring, but delayed as cabinet ministers thrashed out a way to lift the two-child limit on universal credit.It appears to have been worth the wait for many Labour MPs, who are very happy about Rachel Reeves’s announcement at the budget that the cap would go.These are the key points from the strategy and the impact they will have:This is the key plank of the strategy as it will have by far the biggest and fastest effect.
The figures suggest that it will lift 300,000 children out of relative poverty by 2027, rising to 450,000 by 2031,The Resolution Foundation says there will simultaneously be some poverty-producing measures, such as the freeze in local housing allowance, but it still projected 300,000 fewer children living in poverty by the end of the parliament, arguing this would make the government’s record “not that far shy of that achieved by the first Blair administration” in 1997-2001,This was announced some time ago but is still a key measure to reduce child poverty,From September next year, more than half a million additional pupils in England will become eligible for free school meals if they come from a family in receipt of universal credit above the current £7,400 income cap,The existing provision already covers 2.
1 million disadvantaged children.Estimates in the child poverty strategy suggest it will help lift 100,000 children out of poverty by 2028.The key Labour manifesto pledge to provide free breakfast clubs for primary schoolchildren in England is under way.The government recently announced offers from Weetabix, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s for early adopter schools.“These partnerships will maximise the impact of our free breakfast clubs, making it work better for all schools and ensuring every child has access to a variety of nutritious food whilst freeing up time,” it said.
In some areas, there will be a pilot programme to ensure homeless families in temporary B&B accommodation are moved into permanent homes within six weeks,The £8m scheme will be trialled in 20 council areas, with the aim of expanding it if successful,There will also be a new duty for councils to inform schools, GPs and health visitors when a child is put in temporary accommodation with their family,In a parallel policy strand, ministers will work with the NHS to prevent mothers with newborn babies being discharged back to B&B hostels or other similarly unsuitable housing,The most recent figures for England showed there were 2,070 households with children that had been in bed-and-breakfast accommodation for more than six weeks.
By law, such accommodation is meant to be used only as a temporary measure in an emergency and for no longer than six weeks.One of the criticisms of the policy is that there is a lack of a binding target for the government but its estimates that more than 500,000 children will be lifted out of relative poverty will be seen as a benchmark.Some experts are sceptical that figure will be reached.The Institute for Fiscal Studies said there was “considerable uncertainty over how large a reduction in measured poverty these policies will ultimately deliver, partly due to genuine economic uncertainty”.However, alongside the estimates of children in relative poverty there will also be a new measure of “deep material poverty”.
The first statistics show about 2 million children are in this situation.It is a new measure of those children who are the most deprived according to which essentials they are forced to do without.Experts believe this will also be a valuable measure of whether the government’s policies are working, if it is significantly reduced over time.Ministers have moved to make sure parents know that all baby formula contains the same ingredients, so there is no need to buy more expensive brands.Under the changes, the government will accept the recommendations made in February by the Competition and Markets Authority intended to help inform parents about baby formula products that are cheaper than the best-known brands, such as nutritionally identical supermarket own-brand ones.
The measures will include rules setting out that all infant formula products must be displayed together in shops.A rule change from next year will increase eligibility for reimbursement of upfront childcare costs paid by people returning from parental leave, which it said would make it easier for new parents who receive universal credit to get back to work.The high upfront cost of childcare can be a barrier to people moving into employment.The government says this measure will prevent new parents from facing a debt trap, meaning more parents can get back to work faster.The government has vowed to overhaul the child maintenance service, promising a new system in the next few years with an improved ability to identify and act on non-compliance.
It will halve the fees for those using the service, while maintaining a 20% fee for non-resident parents who refuse to pay up on time and in full.It said parents will be able to choose whether to move to the new service, or get improved support to make and maintain a family-based arrangement.
Ministers urged to close £2bn tax loophole in car finance scandal
Ministers are being urged to close a loophole that will allow UK banks and specialist lenders to avoid paying £2bn in tax on their payouts to motor finance scandal victims.Under the current law, any operation that is not a bank can deduct compensation payments from their profits before calculating their corporation tax, reducing their bill.UK banks have been blocked from claiming this relief since 2015, but it has now emerged that those due to pay redress as part of the pending £11bn car loan compensation scheme can exploit it because their motor finance arms are considered “non-bank entities”.The Guardian has learned this includes the operations of big high street names including Barclays and Santander UK, and Lloyds Banking Group, which is the UK’s biggest provider of car loans through its Black Horse division.Specialist lenders in the scandal, which include the lending arms of car manufacturers such as Honda and Ford, also fall outside this taxation rule
Cloudflare admits ‘we have let the Internet down again’ after outage hits major web services – as it happened
Technical problems at internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare today have taken a host of websites offline this morning.Cloudflare said shortly after 9am UK time that it “is investigating issues with Cloudflare Dashboard and related APIs [application programming interfaces – used when apps exchange data with each other].Cloudflare has also reported it has implemented a potential fix to the issue and is monitoring the results.But the outage has affected a number of websites and platforms, with reports of problems accessing LinkedIn, X, Canva – and even the DownDetector site used to monitor online service issues.Last month, an outage at Cloudflare made many websites inaccessible for about three hours
Cloudflare apologises after latest outage takes down LinkedIn and Zoom
Cloudflare has apologised after an outage on Friday morning hit websites including LinkedIn, Zoom and Downdetector, the company’s second outage in less than a month.“Any outage of our systems is unacceptable, and we know we have let the internet down again,” it said in a blogpost, adding that it would release more information next week on how it aims to prevent these failures.The outage on Friday came after Cloudflare adjusted its firewall to protect customers from a widespread software vulnerability revealed earlier this week, and was not an attack, it said. Earlier, it said a separate issue had been reported with its application programming interfaces.The issue, which affected 28% of its traffic, lasted for half an hour and was resolved shortly after 9am GMT, it said
‘Urgent clarity’ sought over racial bias in UK police facial recognition technology
The UK’s data protection watchdog has asked the Home Office for “urgent clarity” over racial bias in police facial recognition technology before considering its next steps.The Home Office has admitted that the technology was “more likely to incorrectly include some demographic groups in its search results”, after testing by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) of its application within the police national database.The report revealed that the technology, which is intended to be used to catch serious offenders, is more likely to incorrectly match black and Asian people than their white counterparts.In a statement responding to the report, Emily Keaney, the deputy commissioner for the Information Commissioner’s Office, said the ICO had asked the Home Office “for urgent clarity on this matter” in order for the watchdog to “assess the situation and consider our next steps”.The next steps could include enforcement action, including issuing a legally binding order to stop using the technology or fines, as well as working with the Home Office and police to make improvements
Australia close on victory against England: Ashes second Test, day three – live
“Even miracles wouldn’t want to intervene in such situations for England,” says Abhishek Chopra. “Such a beautifully terrible omnishambles.”You know England are really screwed when Ben Stokes is at the crease and you still don’t believe a miracle is possible.“Mate, I couldn’t agree more with Jonathan Hungin (11.32am) re: the India series,” says Max Williams
Sun setting on England’s Ashes dream as Australia close on second Test triumph
England wilted in the Brisbane heat, their top order collapsing under the lights to leave hopes of securing the Ashes in tatters on day three of the second Test at the Gabba.England slipped from 90 for one to 134 for six as Australia’s attack snared the wickets of Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook and Jamie Smith.Before they went in to bat, England had been left with a mountain to climb after Australia’s tail ran their bowlers ragged. The tourists hit a brick wall of resistance as the hosts’ lower order lined up in defiance, stacking up a first-innings lead of 177 as they were bowled out for a formidable 511.A fatigued England were left to bake in the sunshine as Australia’s last three wickets put on 128, extending a morale-sapping innings into its 118th over
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