The Queen's Speech offers 'little' to struggling families

Thursday, 10 May 2012 9:06 AM

The Queen’s Speech has done nothing to stop child poverty or help families struggling on benefits, according to Child Poverty Action Group.

Although the group says that the focus on families in the speech was positive, it offered little that would make life easier for the working poor and those looking for employment.

The CAPG believe that changes in employment law will have a negative impact on those in work, creating a higher risk of being fired easily. As well as this the charity believes that more plans to help people in low paid jobs should have been outlined, highlighting that six in ten children in poverty have a parent in work and not earning enough to support the family.

The charity has welcomed the increased choice of special educational needs, but also called for the government to ‘stop targeting disabled children’ with austerity measures. It highlights that 40 per cent of disabled children in Britain already live below the property line, with cuts of up £1,400 a year expected when benefits are switched to universal credit.

Alison Garnham, chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group believes that future benefit cuts are going to be increasingly damaging to children.

She said “This will mean a total cut of £22,000 by the time a disabled child is sixteen, which will do far more harm to health, learning and life chances than you can remedy by changing how ‘choice' works in education.”

Universal Credit will be implemented from October 2013.

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