Latest news with #povertyreduction
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Keir Starmer tells MPs he wants to cut child poverty before next election
Keir Starmer said he wants to reduce child poverty by the end of the parliament, as the prime minister comes under mounting pressure to end the two-child benefit cap. The prime minister told MPs on Monday it was his aim to cut the number of children living in poverty by the time of the next election, going further than the manifesto pledge his party made before last year's election. Starmer's target will renew focus on ending the two-child cap, which poverty campaigners say is the most efficient way to take children out of poverty but would cost an estimated £3.6bn a year. Speaking to members of parliament's liaison committee, the prime minister said: 'We've set up a designated taskforce to look specifically to child poverty, to devise our strategy, and I have oversight of that, so that everybody can see it's a No 10/prime minister priority in what we're doing.' Asked by Meg Hillier, the chair of the Treasury select committee, whether it was his aim to cut child poverty this parliament, he replied: 'Yes. The last Labour government got child poverty down, and I want to get child poverty down.' His comments go further than the 2024 party manifesto, which promised to 'develop an ambitious strategy to reduce poverty'. But the government remains unclear on how it intends to meet the prime minister's target, with the results of the child poverty taskforce expected later this year. Starmer has previously said he wants to end the cap 'when fiscal conditions allow' but ministers said this has been made harder recently by the government's decision to abandon planned cuts to disability benefits in the face of a Labour rebellion. Child poverty rates have been rising for most of the last decade, and nearly a third of children now live in poverty, according to campaign groups. Ending the two-child cap, which was imposed by the Conservatives in 2017, would be a costly measure but one that experts say would have the most direct impact on poverty rates per pound spent. The Child Poverty Action Group says scrapping it would take 350,000 children out of poverty overnight – reducing the rate by seven percentage points. Starmer came under heavy criticism during Monday's hearing with the chairs of all 32 Commons select committees – even from his Labour colleagues over the government's record on poverty and living standards. Debbie Abrahams, the chair of the work and pensions select committee, said she had been 'ashamed' by the initial proposals in the government's welfare bill, against which she helped lead the rebellion. 'This was poor legislation,' she said. 'It was designed to save money for the Treasury by cutting support to sick and disabled people. It was so far removed from Labour values of fairness and social justice, let alone compassion and common decency. I have to say I felt ashamed.' Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion Liam Byrne, the chair of the business select committee, warned that government policies were helping make the bottom 40% of households worse off. 'The bottom 40% of households, they're not going to be better off in three years' time,' he said. 'They're actually going to be £1,200 a year worse off.' Byrne urged Starmer to commit to raising capital gains tax to give lower-paid people a tax cut – something the prime minister declined to rule out. Starmer did however say he wanted to sign further deals with the EU following on from the government's recent 'reset', specifically on cooperation over medicines and making it easier for touring musicians and other artists to travel around the continent. 'They're not the only areas, but these are common sense changes that we could make to our arrangements with the EU, which have, in my view, very little to do with the vote in 2016.' The prime minister added that he had been 'quite uncomfortable' about the Afghanistan superinjunction, which hid a major data breach and secret relocation scheme. The prime minister called the scheme and the superinjunction a 'shocking inheritance' from the previous government, even though his ministers extended the legal tool twice and only lifted it after a year in power.
Argaam
10-07-2025
- Business
- Argaam
Energy Minister says Saudi Arabia consistently delivers on policy, results
The Kingdom has always remained consistent—not only in its messages, but also in implementing policies and delivering tangible results on the ground, Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman stated. Speaking at the 9th OPEC International Seminar in Vienna, the Saudi minister emphasized that any energy transition that does not contribute to reducing poverty or improving energy access in developing countries is bound to fail. The energy transition must be inclusive and should not exclude anyone, he added, pointing out that 1.2 billion people currently suffer from energy poverty, while more than two billion rely on traditional fuels for cooking, that are unsafe. He added that economics and innovation, not ideology, should be the guide, warning that ideological approaches will lead to a dead end. Sustainability concept must be expanded to include economic and commercial dimensions, Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said.
The Independent
07-07-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Modi government's equality boast draws ‘intellectual dishonesty' accusation
India 's government claimed the country ranked fourth globally in income equality, citing a World Bank report. The World Bank's April report noted a significant reduction in extreme poverty, from 16.2 per cent to 2.3 per cent, and an improvement in its consumption-based Gini index. However, the World Bank also warned of data limitations and its own report highlighted that income inequality, according to the World Inequality Database, has risen. India's opposition party, the Indian National Congress, accused the government of "intellectual dishonesty," stating no country with a high poverty rate could make such a claim. Economists and the opposition argue that using income-based Gini figures or different poverty benchmarks paints a far less equal picture, with one analysis ranking India 176th globally for income inequality.
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Food insecurity goes up in the summer among kids in Toronto. A new city program aims to help
The school year has come to an end, and for a lot of kids in Toronto who depend on their school food programs for meals, that means an increased struggle with food insecurity. On Monday, the city of Toronto launched a CampTO Nutrition Program aimed at helping families feed their children through the summer. The initiative will provide morning snacks to up to 56,000 children at 89 designated camp locations across the city. "We know that kids or some families who may be accessing food through a student nutrition program in their school, can't access those programs during the summer," Toronto's manager of the poverty reduction office, Bryony Halpin, told CBC. "So programs like CampTO Nutrition is trying to improve access to nutritious snacks for kids who are attending city summer camps and are not getting access to food programs in their school community at that time." Halpin said child and family poverty has "sharply increased" in the city. She said that about one in four Toronto families is food insecure, and up to 60 per cent of families might be experiencing poverty in some areas of the city. "Food insecurity has been rising in Toronto in recent years at pretty alarming rates, and this is due to the increasing cost of living," she said. "Food-insecure households often choose between paying for food or paying for other needs like rent. Having a job is often not enough." Halpin said there are many impacts on kids dealing with food insecurity, including their capacity to learn in the classroom, their behaviour, long-term health outcomes, and social stigma. CampTO Nutrition Program is targeted to reach families in high-need communities, she said, with participating camps located in Free Centres and neighbourhoods with a high percentage of low-income households. The program is expected to run until late August. Susan Wright says she's "thrilled" at the city's CampTO Nutrition Program, and hopes the kids can be supported with everything they need. Wright is the founder of summerlunch+, a non-profit organization that provides meal kits, food education and cooking classes, for students across Ontario in the summer. She says the summer months put additional pressure on families who rely on school food meals during the school year, leading parents to make "tough choices". "Food is becoming so unaffordable for many that folks have to make tough choices sometimes between calories and nutrition," she told CBC's Metro Morning on Thursday. This year, summerlunch+ had spaces for 500 families, and 122 families are currently on the wait list, she said. Habeeb Madani, who once benefited from summerlunch+ and now works for the organization as a food packer, said the program helped him and his family. "When my parents were off to work, and I was the only one taking care of my siblings, I wouldn't know what to make, so the program has really helped me to make healthier food," he told CBC's Metro Morning on Thursday. LISTEN | CBC's Metro Morning speaks to Wright and Madani about summerlunch+: Madani, who's now 18, said he started using summerlunch+ when he was eight years old. He got hired by the program three years ago. "It feels very full circle knowing that I'm giving back to what was very influential to me," he said. In November, Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank released a report that showed that more than one in 10 Toronto residents rely on food banks. In 2024, there were 3.5 million visits to food banks, three times as many visits as before the pandemic. One in three food bank users are children. WATCH | Daily Bread CEO talks about record of food bank use in 2024: Neil Hetherington, CEO of Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank, said food insecurity among kids also tends to rise in the summer because parents have additional expenses. "You've got to figure out child care opportunities. Are you sending that child to camp? Are you providing child care opportunities through nannies and through babysitting? Those are additional expenses for a family who is already food insecure and is already stretched," Heatherington said. He said he's seeing a lot of parents bringing their children to food banks. "One of the most heartbreaking things for me is to see children in the line at the Daily Bread Food Bank who are excited about the prospect of coming to the food bank today. It means that they'll be able to choose some food that they want to eat for dinner tonight," he said.
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
People with disabilities set to receive new $200 monthly benefit
People who qualify for the new Canada Disability Benefit will begin receiving their payments this month. Haley Flaro, the executive director of Ability New Brunswick, is relieved they won't face reduced disability payments from the province as a result. Under the new benefit, eligible recipients can receive up to $200 per month or $2,400 a year. Flaro says Alberta is going to claw back from the benefits people already receive in that province. "They've decided to take it, claw it back from their social assistance benefits, which isn't going to help people move towards lifting them out of poverty," Flaro said. "It's actually going to be a way to subsidize their own social assistance system, which is really unfortunate." There was a fear that other provinces would follow Alberta's lead, but not New Brunswick says Social Development Minister Cindy Miles. "It's more important than ever that our most vulnerable residents feel secure and supported," Miles said in a release. "I want to make it clear to New Brunswickers who receive disability benefits that receiving the Canadian Disability Benefit will not reduce their payments from the department." Flaro says New Brunswick's commitment honours the spirit of what they're trying to achieve.. "It was really intended to help lift people with a disability out of poverty in New Brunswick," she said. "They're one of the two most impoverished populations, next only to single mothers." According to the most recent data from Statistics Canada, 35.3 per cent of New Brunswickers are living with a disability, the second-highest rate in Canada. The national average is 27 per cent. When the federal government announced the new benefit early last year, advocates like Flaro were disappointed by the low amount. They didn't think it would make a significant difference. Flaro told CBC at the time that they were expecting something closer to $2,000 a month. Now that the program is in place and payments are set to begin, Flaro says the organization wants to work with the government to make it more generous. "It's certainly not the amount that people with disabilities were looking for, nor organizations like ours, but there's a lot of infrastructure and planning that goes into this type of benefit and it's in place now and there's nowhere to go but up," Flaro said. Even though the amount is lower than what was sought, Flaro says it will make a huge difference for people facing rising costs in housing, food and power rates. People with disabilities also face added costs for things like home support services, medications and transportation. "We're facing many crises in New Brunswick and throughout Canada," she said. "This is going to be $2,400 a year helping people address their basic needs." Flaro says the provincial government is open to talking about an income program that would pay a "living wage" to people with disabilities in need, something more like what they pressed Ottawa for in consultations last year. She says the new Canada Disability Benefit is a step in that direction. "This is a significant victory in New Brunswick," she said.
