Shadow chancellor says an incoming Labour government could not afford to axe benefit cap because of ‘dire economic inheritance’
In her Today interview Rachel Reeves said that tackling child poverty was “at the heart” of the document published by Labour earlier this month setting out details of its ‘breaking down barriers to opportunity’ mission. (See 9.31am.)
That was not immediately obvious to readers. The document runs to 22 pages, but the phrase “child poverty” only appears three times, in this passage.
Child poverty reduction: Dedicated professionals across our education system go above and beyond every day to deliver for our children, but the barriers that too many children face – from the lack of a secure home, to not having books to read or pens to draw with – are not theirs to fix.
As part of the Opportunity Mission cross-government task force, we will involve child poverty reduction specialists at the heart of this work. Labour will put a focus on reducing child poverty at the centre of how we secure opportunity for children and young people from every background and every corner of our country.
Tackling child poverty is in Labour’s DNA. When we were last in government, under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, hundreds of thousands of children and pensioners were lifted out of poverty. Keir Starmer and Bridget Phillipson set out our opportunity mission just a couple of weeks ago. Child poverty was at the heart of that.
The truth is there’s more than six things that an incoming Labour government won’t be able to do. We’re going to have the most dire economic inheritance of any incoming government. The level of debt in the UK economy is the same size as everything we produce in the economy on an annual basis. Our interest rates and inflation are a staggering high levels and our economy is barely growing. It’s barely grown these last 13 years …
It is our duty to get control of the public finances and ensure we’ve got a stable economy. It’s not a ‘nice to have’, it is the rock of stability upon which all other policies have to be built. There will be nothing in a Labour manifesto there’s not fully costed and fully funded.
Tackling child poverty is in Labour’s DNA. When we were last in government, under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, hundreds of thousands of children and pensioners were lifted out of poverty. Keir Starmer and Bridget Phillipson set out our opportunity mission just a couple of weeks ago. Child poverty was at the heart of that.
