£28m child poverty plan in North East

A £28.6 million action plan to cut child poverty in the North East has been unveiled.

Mayor Kim McGuinness has published a new strategy aimed at improving the lives of the 120,000 babies, children and young people growing up poor across the region.

The document details 36 projects, including three “ground-breaking” pilot schemes to support expectant mothers during pregnancy, provide baby boxes to all first-time families on Universal Credit and offering more low and no-cost activities for young people.

Ms McGuinness said that she wanted to “end the days where our children and region are held back by poverty”.

Funding for the action plan, which runs until 2030, is due to be signed off by the North East Combined Authority’s cabinet next week.

A national child poverty strategy had been due for publication earlier this year but has been delayed, while the Labour Government has come under mounting pressure to scrap the two-child benefit cap in order to lift struggling families out of poverty.

Ms McGuinness said: “It’s no secret that the North East can be the best place in the world to grow up, to live and raise a family. Yet this isn’t the case for far too many babies, children and young people across our region, whose life chances and outcomes are being limited by financial hardship and all the obstacles this creates.

“That’s why I’ve made tackling child poverty my number one priority as mayor – including by setting up our first-of-its-kind child poverty reduction unit, and kickstarting the development of this action plan – because it is simply not possible to achieve our mission of making the North East the home of real opportunity unless we do more to address this issue, together. Doing so is also central to ensuring our region can play its fullest part in contributing to the country’s economic growth, both now and longer-term.”

The poverty action plan includes:

• The expansion of a grant scheme offering help with the cost of childcare, which is currently being trialled in County Durham;
• A trial of a North East Health in Pregnancy grant to support all expectant mothers in the area on low incomes or in receipt of Universal Credit with additional costs in their third trimester of pregnancy;
• Funding expanded provision of baby boxes to all first-time families in the area in receipt of Universal Credit or assessed as benefiting from this support;
• Expanding  specialist youth provision and access to year-round, low and no-cost activities for older young people – including support which opens up pathways to future employment, such as pre-apprenticeship training;
• Retaining the £1 single fare for young people aged 21 and under on the bus, Metro and Shields Ferry until at least 2028;
• Establishing a new North East Fundamentals Fund to support the expansion of proven, local schemes helping to ensure that no child goes without essential items;
• Improving the consistency of support schemes across different parts of the region – such as auto-enrolment in free school meals, help with school uniform costs and crisis support;
• The launch of a North East Warm Homes Taskforce to deliver retrofitting plans that would make existing homes warmer and cheaper to heat, starting with a three-year pilot targeted at supporting working-age women with children in private rented homes.

Beth Farhat, who chairs the North East Child Poverty Commission, said: “Child poverty is not only damaging the development and future prospects of tens of thousands of children across our region, it is holding the whole of the North East back. Devolution presents us with a significant opportunity to prioritise tackling this issue together – and it is so important that this has been grasped by Mayor McGuinness, with an action plan that not only recognises the importance of collectively investing more in babies, children and young people, but sets out why this matters to the whole of our region.”

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson, co-chair of the Government’s child poverty taskforce, said that the North East would be in a “great position” to combat poverty through the new plan.

The Houghton and Sunderland South MP added: “Tackling child poverty is absolutely crucial if we are to break down barriers to opportunity and improve the life chances of every child across every part of our country.

“This task cannot be achieved by national Government alone, and I am proud to see the North East leading the way on addressing this issue at a regional level – driven forward by Mayor Kim McGuinness and her determination to both invest in children and families, and to bring together cross-sector partners in what has to be a collective endeavour.”