In an open letter to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, the MPs called on the government to expand the sanctions regime on the Israeli government over “displacement and state-backed violence” as part of their E1 housing development in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The letter reads: “There is an urgent need for accountability and concrete consequences in response to Israel’s violations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are spiralling by the day. We believe ending trade with settlements is a vital next step and urge you to initiate proceedings to put such a ban into place as soon as possible.”

The list of signatories includes every Labour select committee chair, former health secretary Wes Streeting and a cross-factional section of backbenchers.

Melanie Ward, the lead signatory of the letter, said: “It’s time to be clear that settlements have no viable economic future. We are deeply concerned at the vast rise in violent Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians and at settlement expansion, which forces Palestinians off their land.

“The Israeli government itself is clear this is designed to prevent a two-state solution ever being realised.”

It comes as Wes Streeting, who is preparing for a leadership challenge against Keir Starmer, said he felt like he was “hitting up against a brick wall” when trying to raise concerns about Gaza while in the Cabinet.

He told The Guardian: “In government, I did everything I could behind the scenes to get the government to act with the moral urgency the conflict demands. 

“I wasn’t the only Cabinet minister pushing for action, but we often felt like we were hitting up against a brick wall. Our concerns and motives were dismissed.”

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Barnard, who was elected as part of the Momentum and Campaign for Labour Party Democracy-backed Centre Left Grassroots Alliance in 2024, said she was suspended in October last year pending an investigation.

It is understood the investigation concluded late last month, with an NEC panel agreeing that no further action should be taken and lifting her suspension with immediate effect.

The suspension, which is understood to have followed a complaint through the party’s complaints process, prevented her from attending NEC meetings, participating in party activities and representing the Labour Party.

Barnard plans to seek re-election to the NEC as part of the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance, with voting due to take place between July and September.

‘Working people must be able to find robust representation within party’s highest bodies’

Following an investigation, my suspension has been lifted. I have been fully reinstated with immediate effect

I’ve spent my life fighting for a party that represents its members and serves working‑class people

Im standing for re-election to Labours NEC

Let’s get our party back pic.twitter.com/KhnZ3G5vxC

— Jess Barnard (@JessicaLBarnard) June 8, 2026

In a statement shared with LabourList, Barnard said: “In October 2025, my Labour Party membership rights were suspended pending the outcome of an investigation. As a result, between October 2025 and the end of May 2026, I have been unable to attend party meetings, stand in internal elections or selections, represent the party, or participate in any member ballots. This meant I was unable to carry out my duties as an elected NEC member during that period, including providing reports back to membership or speaking publicly as an NEC member.

“I am pleased to confirm that the investigation has now concluded. The NEC panel considering the matter agreed that no further action should be taken and my suspension has been lifted with immediate effect. I am fully reinstated as an NEC member.

“I believe it is vital that the Labour Party operates once again as a broad church that respects the rights of its members and stays true to its core purpose. We must ensure our democratic structures function as a vehicle for improving the lives of working-class people, rather than being overshadowed by internal factionalism.

“Every position I have held within the party has been voluntary. I have given up my time, alongside full-time work, to be a voice for ordinary party members on Labour’s NEC and to advocate a bold, transformative vision for our party.

“As a working-class woman without a family background in politics, I have not had access to vast resources or media connections. I firmly believe if we want our party to truly represent working people, working people must be able to find robust representation within its highest bodies.

“With the far-right on the rise, we must ensure our party is once again a strong champion for the working class. Millions of people in this country simply cannot afford for us to lose focus on their safety and their futures.

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“Many of you over the past few months have been asking about my intention to re-stand for election to Labour’s National Executive Committee, to help move the party forward and ensure it returns to being a powerful vehicle for left-wing politics in Britain. Now that this issue is resolved, I am pleased to confirm my intention to re-stand and look forward to sharing my commitments, policy platform and record with members shortly.

“Finally, I would like to thank my solicitors and trade union representatives for their support throughout this incredibly difficult period.”

‘Lifting of Jess’ suspension is long overdue’

Chair of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy Rachel Garnham said: “It is great news that Jess is now able to stand for re-election to Labour’s NEC, and I hope members will vote for her re-election, as a consistent and outspoken advocate for members’ democratic rights, for our crucial trade union link and for policies that would regain support for Labour.

“It has been a huge shame that Jess has been prevented from fulfilling her NEC duties in recent months that she had previously pursued so diligently.

“We welcome her back and hope that we can have a fair election untainted by factionalism.”

A spokesperson for Momentum said: “The lifting of Jess’s suspension is welcome news, albeit long overdue.

“It is now widely recognised that Labour’s toxic internal culture needs to change, and we look forward to campaigning alongside Jess to end the hyper-factional abuse of process that has become commonplace under Keir Starmer’s leadership, and led to disastrous results.

“It is imperative that Jess is now reelected to the NEC so she can continue being an unabashed socialist, anti-war voice and advocate for members’ democracy.”

Asked about the case, a Labour Party spokesperson said: “All complaints are assessed thoroughly in line with Labour Party rules and procedures.”

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While the loss of seats in Wales and England felt more precipitous, the fall in support for the Party in Scotland has much longer roots going back before it was supercharged by the divisions exposed at the 2014 independence referendum. Thus the falling back of Labour in Scotland has been slower and more ‘baked in’.

But a long term decline (arrested briefly at the 2024 general election) should still be an existential worry for the Party. It still means that vast numbers of Scottish voters are not convinced that Labour are the party that shares their values, or that they believe Scottish Labour are best placed to deliver on them. In fact a YouGov demographic report says that only 8% of those who voted ‘yes’ to independence in the referendum voted for Labour in May.

READ MORE: ‘The moral foundations of Scottish Labour’s Flip-Flop-Flip’

Given the litany of failures of the SNP at Holyrood, that is unacceptable. Given the scandals that have beset the nationalists and continue to rumble on, Labour’s inability to win back these voters is a stark warning. If we cannot beat the SNP under these conditions, when – and how – can we?

Scottish Labour is undertaking a review  following the election. But there are reports that some are worried that this will be simply an exercise in excuses – with fingers pointed only at Kier Starmer, and conditions closer to home ignored.

There is no doubting that the unpopularity of the UK government played a significant role in Scottish Labour’s defeat. But it is not the only factor. If it were this decline would not be so long and ongoing. If it were, Sarwar’s high profile intervention calling for Starmer to step down would have had more of an impact. So painful and difficult questions must be answered much closer to home and in Westminster.

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How can Scottish Labour defy the sense that they are treated like a branch office? Is that something that Scottish Labour alone can change or does there need to be national change in the way Labour is run in the nations and regions? Does what happens in this Scottish review stay in Scotland or are there lessons there for all of us? Is Scottish Labour going it alone the answer as some are calling for? 

There is always a complexity about writing about Scottish politics from London. If we don’t do so, we ignore a vital part of our movement. But when we do, there are questions about either interfering from afar or lacking the requisite cultural knowledge to truly understand the specific cultural currents that affect Scottish politics.

As someone who has always believed in a ‘bottom up’ approach to politics I recognise this charge. It is not for me to tell Scottish Labour what the answers are to what ails them. But as someone who cares deeply about Scotland and the union, I do not believe we should ‘wheesht’ when it comes to LabourList’s role in examining the Party in Scotland.

For Labour to be truly a party for all the nations and regions we need to strengthen our relationship with voters everywhere. We need to lift every rock to examine what lies beneath from Lands End to John O’Groats. And we need to support our Scottish colleagues and comrades as they do this vital work. A Scottish Labour review can only be led by Scots. But it matters to all of us. And we should all care that it is as robust as possible so that its lessons are as sharp and effective as possible – for Scotland and for all of us. 

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But we also need to see the climate crisis back on the political agenda. Climate change denial is creeping into politics like never before, with far-right parties treating fossil fuels as a panacea for the country’s problems. Some Labour figures are even calling on the government to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea. Plundering the North Sea wouldn’t make a significant difference for working-class people in Britain, and it would be grossly irresponsible to working-class people in the Global South. 

Climate change is already affecting workers in our country. Rising temperatures are bad for public health, and are a major factor in driving up energy and food prices. Last week’s heatwave saw disruptions to public transport, and made the workplace extremely uncomfortable for many public service workers. It’s feared that forecasts of a ‘super El Niño’ in 2026 and 2027 will bring further extremes, with the possibility that next year may be another heatwave hell.

READ MORE: ‘The heat is on. And Labour must embed national preparedness across society’

Meanwhile, in the Global South, the consequences of climate change are devastating: droughts, floods and hurricanes – condemning millions of workers’ to poverty. Globally, around 2.4 billion workers are now exposed to excessive heat – causing thousands of heat-related deaths each year, along with millions of injuries.

While Reform UK embraces climate denial, and the Conservatives disown their own climate targets, Labour is in real danger of embracing its own form of denial. Drilling for more oil and gas would only serve fossil fuel vultures, not the working-class that Labour was established to represent. 

An important climate test is coming up for the Labour government: whether to approve drilling of Rosebank – Britain’s largest undeveloped oil field. UNISON is one of ten trade-unions who are urging Labour to reject this application. Ministers should focus on supporting workers, and their communities, through the green transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy – not acquiescing to oil and gas companies.

A new Labour leader must also cease giving into Whitehall orthodoxies. They must stop the Treasury from blocking effective climate action and public investment. And they must show real leadership by removing the stranglehold of fiscal rules on public spending. If Labour politicians had taken a submissive attitude in the 1940s, we wouldn’t have an NHS or a welfare state today. 

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There’s also a dangerous belief in Whitehall that some sectors are vital for economic growth and, therefore, should be given a free pass to ignore their climate impact. One example is the government’s support for unlimited airport expansion, including at Heathrow. This would put millions of tonnes of carbon into the environment and cause irreparable damage to the local area, where people’s homes and places of worship would be demolished.

A new Labour Prime Minister must also make it clear that it’s not either/or when it comes to economic growth and climate change. With the right leadership and policies, we can do both. Averting the climate catastrophe through renewable energy offers us a chance to create a green industrial base, one which can grow the economy, improve public services and improve the lives of working-class people. 

Despite Labour’s current woes, there’s still a chance for the Party to regain popular support if it moves back to progressive policies and values. And it’s clear what a new leader must do: tax extreme wealth; ensure workers have a genuinely liveable wage, and support the public service we all rely on. Just as important is supporting the climate. To not do so would be a complete abandonment of Labour’s historic purpose.

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I ask this as someone who has seen both the strengths and the failures of our party from within.

I served as Leader of the Kensington and Chelsea Labour Group of Councillors from 2023 to 2026. I am reliably told I am the only Labour Group Leader in the country who did not lose a single councillor seat at last month’s local elections. Instead, we gained six additional seats from the Greens, Conservatives and Independents. We entered the election with seven Labour councillors and emerged with thirteen.

Of course, this success was not about me alone as a leader. I worked alongside a brilliant organiser, hardworking candidates and a local MP who supported us well. While I led the group through one of its most challenging periods, the results were down to collective effort and shared commitment.

Campaigning and governing

That experience, and what happened to me in 2022, has shaped my view of where our party finds itself today.

Like Andy Burnham, I stayed loyal to Labour even when I was blocked – I believe unjustly –  from being a parliamentary candidate in the 2022 selection process. Despite that, I stayed because I wanted to see a Labour government and continued to serve as a Labour councillor and local government group leader. At times it felt as though my party left me four years ago, but I never wanted to leave it. 

However, it becomes harder to stay silent when leadership is effectively subcontracted to a small, narrow-minded group of individuals. This problem began long before the saga of the so-called “Prince of Darkness” – Peter Mandelson. The leadership of our party delegated responsibility rather than exercising it directly before our leader became Prime Minister of this country.

What concerns me most is that this group never understood when campaigning should end and governing should begin.

READ MORE: ‘Dear Labour’

Instead of setting the political agenda as a governing party with more than 400 MPs, Labour has too often reacted to parties with five MPs or fewer. Those smaller parties have increasingly shaped the political conversation, while Labour, under the Prime Minister’s leadership, has struggled to define its own direction.

The consequences were clear in the recent local elections. Across the country, hardworking Labour councillors lost their seats through no fault of their own. Around 1,500 Labour councillors paid the price for national policy mistakes, unpopular decisions and avoidable errors. Whether it was winter fuel payments, policies seen as anti-business, or a series of unnecessary U-turns, local representatives were left defending decisions they did not make.

To borrow a tennis term ahead of Wimbledon, these were unforced errors.

When councillors lose their seats because of national mistakes, that represents a serious failure of political leadership. For that reason, I believe the Prime Minister should step aside and allow Andy Burnham (if he wins the by-election), who has a proven record of leadership and electoral success, to lead both our party and our country.

Seeking Justice for Grenfell

Last year, as Leader of the Kensington and Chelsea Labour Group, I travelled to Manchester to meet Andy Burnham. We discussed the similarities between the Hillsborough and Grenfell disasters, and the long fight for justice by affected families. I remain grateful for his advice, encouragement and support.

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For me and my fellow Notting Dale ward councillors in Kensington and Chelsea, securing justice for the Grenfell bereaved families and survivors remains our highest priority. This year marks the ninth anniversary of the Grenfell disaster. Seventy-two members of our community lost their lives, and still no one has been held accountable. Justice delayed must never become justice denied.

Advice to Labour Leadership

My advice to the Deputy Leader of our party, and to Andy Burnham if he becomes Labour Leader, is simple: rebuild trust within the Labour family.

Top-down leadership has failed. So too has the delegation of influence to a small group of short-sighted, seemingly revenge-driven individuals who have never run a business or a reputable organisation. Labour succeeds when it is a broad church, not when it becomes controlled by a narrow faction.

The NEC and regional structures of our party should also be reformed to become more transparent and accountable. We must change our party for the better and respect one another as part of the same political family, united by the privilege of serving as MPs, councillors, party members and volunteers.

My advice to our current leader, the Prime Minister, is to write personally to every councillor who lost their seat in last month’s local elections under his leadership, if he has not done so already. He should acknowledge their service, thank them, and facilitate a smooth transition of power for the good of our party and our country.

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Many people like me, from ethnic minority backgrounds or simply members of the Labour movement, may never again seek selection as parliamentary candidates. I do not want others to experience the injustices that I believe I experienced within my own party.

Nevertheless, I will continue to serve my constituents and remain loyal to Labour. Despite my criticisms, I want our party to govern well, regain the trust of the British people, and win re-election in 2029.

That, ultimately, is why I am speaking out.

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The commitment was made through a statement from the union’s controlling Central Executive Council, which was presented to delegates on Sunday.

Speaking during the debate, GMB Vice-President and council worker Sonya Davis said the union must remain politically engaged if it is serious about improving the lives of its members.

“We cannot step back from politics – we must step into it,” she told congress.

READ MORE: Andy Burnham announces he will challenge Starmer for leadership of the Labour Party if elected in Makerfield

Davis said affiliation with Labour gives trade unions a unique opportunity to influence policy and decision-making.

“Ours is a relationship built not on blind loyalty, but on purpose. Not on silence, but on strength. Not on a blank cheque, but on accountability,” she said.

“We are affiliated to Labour because it gives working people, organised through their unions, a voice where decisions are made.

“No other political party in Britain offers trade unions that level of influence.”

“It means that when policy is being developed, we are there. When decisions are being shaped, we are there. When leadership is chosen, our members have a voice,” Davis said.

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However, she stressed that affiliation does not mean unconditional support for the party.

“Affiliation does not mean agreement on everything. It never has, and it never will,” she said.

“Because our duty is not to any political party. Our duty is to our members.

“So yes, we support Labour when it delivers for working-class people. But we also challenge Labour, firmly and unapologetically, when it falls short.”

The reaffirmation of affiliation comes as delegates gather in Blackpool for GMB’s annual congress.

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The post Letters to the Editor – week ending 7 June 202 appeared first on LabourList.

Milburn’s final recommendations are not due until later this year. On the one hand, for the government to want to act sooner is a good sign that they take this issue seriously. But on the other, responding by announcing new work placements, part of which is an expansion of the Sector-based Work Academy Programme (SWAP), is a sign that they may have overlooked arguably the most important point made in the entire report.

READ MORE: The Milburn Review exposes a generational crisis

This point, buried at the bottom of the report in Paragraphs 666-667, is worth spelling out in full:

“Britain has not ignored youth unemployment. For more than two decades, governments have intervened repeatedly and at scale. New Deal for Young People. The Future Jobs Fund. The Work Programme. The Youth Contract. Traineeships. Kickstart. The Youth Offer.  This is not a record of passivity. It is a record of sustained policy effort. Sadly it is also a record of failure…. Despite these interventions, the structural 16-24 NEET rate has not been durably reduced. It has barely fallen below 10% in 25 years.”

The problem Milburn identifies is not government neglect. There have been repeated, energetic, well-intentioned interventions that have failed to materially shift the dial on the problem. If that is the diagnosis, then the test for the Government’s response cannot simply be whether it is big, fast, or visible, but whether it is fundamentally different to what has been tried before. On the evidence of last week’s announcement, the Government seems to have already fallen before reaching the first hurdle.

The evidence on SWAP is mixed. For every pound spent it is estimated that it saves the Treasury £1.83 within two years, and starting a SWAP has been found to increase the time that people spend in employment. This alone might be enough for SWAP to pass the “what works”test, and to appease civil servant concerns over Ministers approving an expansion.

But the government’s impact assessment of SWAP found that for every 100 people who started the programme, SWAP likely only supported an extra 13 of them to be in employment two years later and an additional 34 would have found a job anyway. This means that two years later and most people are still without work, the majority of which would have found it anyway without the programme.

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It seems to me therefore that Ministers, when presented with the evidence of Milburn’s review and asked “to do something”, may have reached for the closest lever to them. The problem is that this lever is much like the many other levers which we have pulled before and, as Milburn outlines, have not delivered any lasting, meaningful reduction in the NEET rate.

It is also worth noting that many of the 300,000 placements will be work experience, not even SWAPs. From the press release, it seems many will be focused in hospitality, health and social care, and construction. Now I am not saying these sectors cannot create excellent career opportunities for young people. For some young people, they will be the stepping stone that they need. But I am shocked that there is no mention of any of the sectors outlined in the government’s Modern Industrial Strategy – spanning the green economy, AI, life sciences, creative industries, and beyond. 

It is mad, frankly, that we are not taking this opportunity to try to place young people directly into the jobs and industries of the future. Instead, we seem to have opted for the easier option of using young people to fill gaps in the current labour market, rather than thinking more broadly about the type of economy that we are trying to build and what it is that we can do to give young people a real stake in it.

The Milburn Review is set to conclude later this year, and we should expect the government to take many of its recommendations seriously. Grasping this issue means recognising that the status quo is not passivity but repeated failure – and that the radical option is not to do more of the same at greater scale, but to build something fundamentally different.

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A generation ago, that figure was less than one in two. Child poverty in Britain has for some time now been a largely in-work phenomenon, yet policy has lagged behind, more focused on boosting employment figures rather than raising pay and job quality. 

Anna’s story – a hard-working parent

Consider Anna’s story. Anna (not her real name) works full time in a GP surgery and claims Universal Credit. She pays her rent, budgets carefully and buys only what she needs. Before every trip to the supermarket, she checks her bank balance to make sure she can afford the essentials. Anna is a single parent raising her daughter alone, doing exactly what successive governments have told parents to do: work hard, and everything else will follow. 

Yet the day she had to call a friend because she couldn’t afford baby milk isn’t one she’ll ever forget. 

What about the Child Poverty Strategy?

Child poverty and the security and dignity of work are both foundational issues for the Labour Party. The government’s child poverty strategy, published in December, was a landmark moment long called for by organisations like ours. Scrapping the two-child limit and extending free school meals will lift hundreds of thousands of children out of hardship. Just as importantly, the strategy challenged the tired mantra that work is the best route out of poverty, recognising instead that structural features of today’s labour market often leave work too low-paid, insecure and inflexible to provide a reliable escape from poverty. 

READ MORE: ‘Social security isn’t the answer to everything, but on child poverty it goes a long way’

However while the diagnosis was welcome, the strategy had rather less to say about concrete measures to boost parental pay and progression at work. Promised reforms to transform jobcentres into a genuine public employment service centred on personalised support, skills and careers development have been modest and incremental, and it remains unclear when ambition will translate into meaningful change for working parents. 

What do the experiences of working parents show us right now?

 Our Work isn’t working report, produced with the Institute for Public Policy Research, draws on new analysis and research to call for a stronger focus on helping working parents on low incomes to progress in the labour market. This isn’t a story about parental effort, but about the changing structure of the modern labour market and what it offers in return. The mothers and fathers we spoke to put in long hours under often difficult conditions. Too often, extra hours bring minimal reward once childcare costs and the tapering away of social security income are taken into account. Only four in ten low-paid working parents reported having access to flexible working, and fewer still had benefits such as enhanced sick pay, paid family leave and paid training that would allow them to invest in their future.

Our analysis found that earnings are closely linked to how families move in and out of poverty. More than sixty percent of exits from poverty involve a meaningful rise in earnings, and more than seven in ten entries into poverty follow an equivalent fall. This underlines a key question for government policy: how can we better support low-income working families to earn more and progress at work?

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For couples, going from one worker to two is particularly impactful for escaping poverty, but often difficult in practice. Even when second earners, often mothers, do enter work, they find it much more difficult to increase their hours or wages than main earners. This reflects a labour market that penalises part-time and flexible working, despite its importance to working parents. 

Our research highlights that single-parent families face particularly high risks of in-work poverty and greater barriers to progression. Three in ten children in working single parent families are in poverty. As Anna’s story shows, full-time work is no guarantee of security: since 2000, the proportion of children in full-time working single parent families who are in poverty has risen by half from 9% to 14%.

What does that mean for reform?

The report identifies five clear priorities for reform. 

• First, going further on childcare, the single biggest constraint on parental progression, by fixing flaws in the system and allowing more disadvantaged families to access childcare from nine months. 
• Second, strengthening work incentives for single parents and second earners so families keep more of what they earn as hours or pay rises. 
• Third, testing a proper progression offer for parents on Universal Credit with specialist employment support, wraparound childcare and training and personalised plans focused on long-term earnings rather than rapid entry into low-quality work. 
• Fourth, investing in adult skills and expanding access to high-quality, affordable learning designed around parents’ lives.
• And finally, working with employers and unions to drive cultural change, expanding decent part time and flexible full-time roles in sectors where rigid hours and weak progression are most entrenched. 

For years, parents like Anna were promised that work would bring security. For too many, that promise has worn thin. The government’s Child Poverty Strategy and its Get Britain Working agenda offers the chance to put that right. 

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The SoS’s brief is wide, but on child poverty the need to make progress is stark. There are 4 million children in the UK living in poverty, a figure expected to drop next year before starting to rise again. Opportunity is rightly a government watchword, and all the evidence shows that growing up in poverty damages a child’s physical and mental health, their educational outcomes, their career prospects. It causes increased infant mortality and shorter life expectancies. Alan Milburn’s recent report on young people and work found that half of the instances of a person not being in employment, education or training at the age of 17 are attributable to growing up in poverty. There is little opportunity to be had in growing up hungry, cold and isolated.  

READ MORE: ‘No young person should be locked out of participation’

This government’s decisions to abolish the two-child limit and expand free school meals are vital first steps and will protect around half a million children from poverty. They sit alongside the establishment of breakfast clubs and the commitment to family hubs that signal this government takes children and their futures seriously.  

But improving the lives of the millions of children who will remain in poverty must mean investing more in them and their futures. The social security system is the most effective way to do this. It’s essential both to lift children out of poverty and to turbo-charge other government initiatives that risk falling short if child poverty stays high.  

You don’t have to take my word for it. The government has already done the work of understanding this in its Child Poverty Strategy, published in December. It sets out that cuts to social security over the previous decade of austerity had been a driver of the rise in child poverty, stunting childhoods and opportunity. And despite the ongoing narrative around the social security bill, it shows that the value of support provided for children in the social security system has in fact been significantly eroded over time.  

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It highlighted too that the majority of children living in poverty are in a working household. Parental employment levels are high, but a lack of secure and flexible jobs means that being in work is not enough to lift families out of poverty. Living in a household where a parent or child has a disability is flagged as a barrier to working or to working more, as is having young children.  

Lots of this equation comes down to care – all parents want and need to be able to look after their kids. But the ability of lower-income parents to escape poverty by earning enough through work is limited by the very fact that they must look after and care for their children. 

It’s also about costs. All children cost money – they always have and they always will. But as the strategy shows, the cost of living continues to put significant and particular pressure on families with kids at a time when the parts of our social security system that are specifically designed to help with those costs, whether through child benefit or universal credit, have faced sustained and damaging cuts. A system that should protect families is, instead, exposing them to poverty.  

It’s clear there’s no one measure that would eliminate child poverty in one go, and the available measures don’t all rest with DWP.  Over time, government will need to fix childcare, improve the jobs market, reduce housing costs while increasing the quality and availability of homes – all issues flagged in the strategy too. But improving children’s lives means we cannot let the social security system continue to cause the devastating levels of child poverty we’re facing as a country. Austerity tested to destruction any idea that slashing family incomes will do anything other than force more children into poverty.  

And on the question about how to improve lives, the role of the DWP isn’t just to come up with policy, it’s to deliver it too. That does sometimes mean asking what benefits people are entitled to, and helping them to access them.  For example, it doesn’t make sense to make more children eligible for free school meals but not take proactive steps to let parents know they qualify and how to register for them.  

The prize for government is that it knows investing in social security works, that it helps makes lives better. It’s what its own evidence shows. It’s why it scrapped the two-child limit. It’s how the previous labour administration lifted one million children out of poverty. And it’s what parents tell us every day.  

“I think we’re going to have a lot less stress. I think I’ll be able to buy things new every now and then. Hopefully, we won’t have to go to food banks or get in more debt. You try to live so frugally, I’ve had holes in my shoes and stuff, go without. But it’s still never enough. And no, I won’t be able to suddenly move to a huge house, but I’d just be able to be a bit less worried about every penny.” 

A mum of three a mum of three reflecting on abolition of the two child limit.

Social security isn’t the answer to everything, but on child poverty it goes a long way. To build a country where every child does get the best start in life, we need to keep going. 

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