A Statistic Which Shames Labour

A boy plays in a run-down street in Govan, Glasgow

Two million children now live in homes where there is no working adult. The Office for National Statistics said the number of children in workless households rose by an annual 170,000 to 1.9 million in April-June of this year, as fathers were among the hardest hit by swingeing job cuts.

One in six children now live in homes where no adult works. The number of children in homes where at least one adult of working age does not have a job also rose up 50,000 to 3.6 million.

While lone-parent households continue to make up the largest proportion of workless households at 40.4%, the figures suggest the latest increase is largely driven by fathers losing their jobs.

Wasn't the eradication of child poverty one of Labour's manifesto pledges since 1999? Yes it was.

Mr Brown, when Chancellor, set targets in 1998 to halve the 3.4 million children at that time living in poverty to 1.7 million by 2010 and eradicate it by 2020. (Source The Times)

In the past 12 years we’ve heard much about how labour are lifting children out of poverty but these figures show there has been little movement. Why? Labour and previous governments over the past 30+ years have slowly eroded the quality of education we offer our children. The introduction of comprehensive schools, with the loss of the academies and secondary moderns, squeezed children of all abilities under one roof. This deprived all children the chance to develop fully because teachers were unable to cope (through no fault of their own) with the variety of abilities presented to them. The children who were interested in learning vocational skills suffered most as facilities were far more limited than those offered in the ‘old’ secondary moderns.

Then we had the Labour policy which insisted schools stop any form of competition. They said this destroyed confidence in our children. Another mad idea which has been detrimental to our children’s development over recent years.

The answer to child poverty is to give our children a first class education and ensure each and every one of them can read and write. We now have two generations who may not have done a day’s work in their lives and their children see the hopelessness within the home. Surely it’s not beyond our politicians to ensure these children receive a schooling worthy of one of the richest countries in the world.

Throwing money at the problem, is not enough, it has to be thrown in the right direction. Continually upping benefits is a short-term, short-sighted solution which does little to help children from poorer homes achieve their potential.

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