Business | 2010.08.19
Child poverty: a looming crisis in Wales | Helen Wilkinson
Child poverty is rising in Wales. With Whitehall having no political incentive to help with the coming austerity, it can only get worse
The assembly government in Wales has just closed its consultation period for its new child poverty strategy. Among the third sector and children\'s organisations, there is a deep-rooted sense of pessimism that much of the hard work of the last decade is at risk of unravelling.
Despite policy commitments and strategies in the last decade, child poverty is once again on the rise. From 2003 – for a three-year period only – child poverty statistics were lower in Wales than in England for the first time (though still higher than in Scotland and Northern Ireland).
But in 2010, Wales once again finds itself at the top of the child poverty league across the four nations of the UK. Some 200,000 Welsh children are poor (32% of the child population) and more disadvantaged than children living in the rest of the United Kingdom.
Why is this? Unemployment is a root cause. Unemployment in Wales stands at 8% (the highest level in the UK next to Humberside and Yorkshire). But that\'s not all. In-work poverty is now a major problem – a consequence of structural shifts in the labour market, and the growth of low-paid, part-time and insecure work. The growth of "in-work poverty" defies government beliefs that the labour-market remedy will take families out of poverty. Work is no longer – if it ever was – in and of itself a reliable route out of poverty.
Part of the problem is that the wraparound infrastructure, which supports parents in work – good transport links and childcare being the most important – is not robust. Just 13% of local authorities in Wales believe they can meet the demands of Welsh parents for childcare.
If the national picture in Wales is bleak, it is worse in rural areas. Here, child poverty is hidden from view – tucked away in valleys and foothills, difficult to count in to the deprivation index (which depends on density to map poverty and deprivation). Unemployment in these areas is high. The work available is often low paid, part time, seasonal and insecure. In many areas, public services scarcely exist – post offices have closed, some schools have closed. The transport infrastructure is poor and travel to and from work (and even school) can be prohibitively expensive for many families.
Children and young people for their part cannot access after-school activities on the same scale as children living in urban areas who benefit from economies of scale. To make matters worse, poor digital infrastructure in rural locations means that children and young people cannot play or learn online like their peers in urban areas.
Wales has long argued that it is discriminated against and does not get its fair share of the national budget. As public budget cuts bite, Wales is being hit even harder than other areas of the UK. The budget in June foreshadowed the tough times ahead. It contained a number of measures that impact on families with children. The forthcoming comprehensive spending review will add to the problem. Wales runs the risk of a double-dip recession and looks set to face its own "perfect storm".
The combination of rising unemployment, long-term detachment from the labour market, stagnation in wage levels (especially at the lower end) and structural changes in the labour market with the continued rise of part-time and flexible work, alongside potentially regressive cuts to tax and benefits, could all accelerate child poverty rates. Indeed, child poverty rates doubled in the UK between the late-1970s and mid-1990s because of this combination of factors.
The public sector represents almost 60% of the Welsh economy. So budget cuts will translate in job losses on a significant scale. The third sector is growing and social enterprise may be the key to creating sustainable work, especially in rural areas – one reason the Welsh assembly government, like the UK government, is so keen to accelerate its development. But to make serious inroads the sector needs investment, not a resource squeeze.
The End Child Poverty Action Network Cymru is concerned that the political commitment to eradicate child poverty by 2020 is not just being watered down in Whitehall – the word on the street is that the UK coalition government is lukewarm about inheriting such an ambitious commitment from the outgoing Labour government – it may be through financial necessity being watered down by the assembly government.
The fear is that an ideological commitment by the UK coalition government to balancing the budget deficit in the lifetime of a five-year parliament will consign today\'s children and young people in Wales to greater poverty.
And this is the real irony: the stark fact is that the government in Whitehall has little political capital to gain from supporting and helping Wales through the austerity ahead. It faces a Welsh assembly coalition of a different political hue.
For the assembly government, the political challenge is a different one. What approach do they take with the UK government? Do they lobby quietly in the hope of minimising the pain? Or do they oppose? More important, how can the assembly government defend and prioritise children, young people and families from the harsh wielding of the fiscal axe?
The assembly government, and local authorities in Wales, should assess potential budget cuts by their impact on child poverty and expose the impact of the new austerity drive on children\'s lives. The assembly government should reaffirm its commitment to the 2020 vision of eradicating child poverty, and expose the poverty of the political class in Westminster.
On this issue at least, the assembly government should follow the wise words of Dylan Thomas : "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
• This article was amended at 13.35 on 19 August
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]d-poverty-looming-crisis-wales
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