Campaigners have said it is “morally repugnant” that vulnerable people are bearing the brunt of spending cuts after official figures showed a record 4.5 million children are living in poverty in the UK.
The figures, released on Thursday, show an extra 100,000 children were living below the breadline in the year to April 2024 – the final full year of child poverty statistics for the last Conservative government. It is the third year running that child poverty has increased.
Food poverty and hunger also rose, according to official surveys, with 300,000 more children in households reliant on food banks over the previous 12 months, and an increase in children in food insecure families, meaning they struggled to afford regular and healthy meals.
Just under a third of UK children (28%) experienced material deprivation, a measure designed to assess whether households are able to afford basics that constitute a minimum acceptable standard of living, such as food, clothes, toys and school trips.
Separate analysis by a leading thinktank has found living standards for lower-income households are on track to fall further by the end of the decade as a result of the chancellor’s spring statement.
A combination of weak economic growth over the next five years and benefit cuts that fell disproportionately on lower-income households would result in an average annual loss of £500 in 2030 for those in the poorest half of the population, according to the Resolution Foundation.
Campaigners warned poverty would continue to increase under Labour unless it took firm action to reverse the trend such as by axing the two-child benefit cap in its child poverty strategy, expected in June.
Labour’s general election manifesto promised an “ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty” alongside a commitment to end “mass dependence” on food banks and charity food handouts, which it called “a moral scar on our society”.
Alison Garnham, the chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group and vice-chair of End Child Poverty, said: “Today’s grim statistics are a stark warning that the government’s own commitment to reduce child poverty will crash and burn unless it takes urgent action.”
Silvia Galandini, of the poverty charity Oxfam, said: “We live in the sixth-richest country in the world where billionaires alone saw their wealth soar by £11bn last year. It is morally repugnant that children, disabled people and carers are the ones who are taking the hit.”
The annual poverty figures were published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) a day after the government came under fire from its own backbenchers over the impact of its cuts to disability and incapacity benefits, which will push 50,000 children and 200,000 disabled adults into relative hardship by the end of the decade.
Just over 370,000 people who currently claim Pip will lose eligibility as a result of the cuts, while another 430,000 who would have been eligible for the benefit in the future will not now get it. On average they will lose £4,500 a year.
The annual households below average income report shows that even before these cuts come into effect, disabled families are already experiencing high levels of poverty – 44% of all children living in poverty were living in a household where someone has a disability.
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Separate data published on Thursday by the DWP from its family resources survey showed just under a third of households (31%) where someone claims Pip disability benefit were food insecure.
The poverty figures showed that in Scotland 23% of children were in poverty, compared with 31% in England and Wales. Holyrood missed its 18% poverty figure target, though experts said its rates would be higher without its child poverty programme.
Prof Ruth Patrick, a professor in social policy at the University of York, said: “The progress Scotland has made on driving poverty rates down shows another way is possible. The UK government could lift 700,000 children out of poverty overnight by matching Scotland’s fiscal commitment to driving poverty down.”
Peter Matejic, the chief analyst at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “The inheritance of the new government was a third consecutive year of rising child poverty and a second year in a row of falling incomes, both alarming symptoms of a deep crisis in living standards.”
At a protest outside parliament on Thursday morning, Liv Eren, a youth ambassador for the End Child Poverty coalition who grew up in poverty, said the government’s cuts were “an act of self-harm”.
“We know that more children are going to be pushed into poverty, but they’re choosing to do it anyway. I feel quite angry,” she said. “This was a government that said they wanted to bring change, and stood at the dispatch box time and time again, having a go at Tory politicians for the child poverty rate, and yet at the earliest opportunity, they’re not bringing change.”
A DWP spokesperson said: “No one should be living in poverty, and we know that the best route out of poverty for struggling families is well paid, secure work. That is why we are reforming our broken welfare system so it helps people into good jobs, boosting living standards and putting money in people’s pockets.”
