----- Original Message ----- From: M A Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: l-i <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; MLL <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2000 8:46 AM Subject: MLL: Shame of child poverty in UK : 'Turkey, Poland and Hungary' [I was astonished to read Mac's statistical breakdown of members (what a clever idea!) and find that Brits preponderate on L-I, why is that I wonder? Mark] Almost one in five children is poor, reveals UN report More about welfare reform Kamal Ahmed, political editor Sunday June 11, 2000 Britain's shameful record on childhood poverty is laid bare today in a damning United Nations report revealing that millions of young people are trapped in conditions among the worst in Europe. The Observer has obtained a report by Unicef, the children's arm of the UN, which says that Britain has one of the worst records on childhood poverty in the industrialised world. Nearly 20 per cent of young people live in families which are below the official poverty line - judged as household income below half median earnings. The report, which will prove an acute embarrassment to Tony Blair's government, puts Britain below countries such as Turkey, Poland and Hungary, which suffer less relative poverty than the UK. Countries such as Sweden, Norway and Finland suffer rates below 5 per cent. 'It is a question this country must face,' said David Piachaud, expert in childhood poverty at the London school of economics. 'Do we want another generation of children who are brought up in poverty, who have worse health, worse education, worse housing and deficient lifetime prospects? Children are supposed to be the innocents.' The report, which will be published on Tuesday, says that even when it comes to absolute poverty - households with an income below the US official poverty line - Britain still languishes in the bottom quarter of the child poverty league. Out of 19 countries surveyed, the UK came 14th, just above Italy. Nearly every European country has fewer children living in poor households and estimates say that anywhere between three and four million children live in British households affected by poverty. The report says that the UK fails on five key indicators of childhood poverty. The childhood poverty rate is high, the number of lone parent families suffering from poverty is high, and the number of workless households is high, as is the number of people who suffer from low wages or have low benefits. The report, to be published on Tuesday, will reignite the debate on Britain's poor. Although it will praise the Government for taking action to lift more than one million children out of poverty, it will reveal the huge amount still to be done. Inquiries by The Observer have discovered the true cost to children of living in households without enough money. Children are eating main meals which consist of little more than toast and beans and rice pudding. Many live in terrible surroundings, with damp running down the walls and inadequate heating. Parents often cannot afford to buy new clothes as the little money they have is spent on food. Some lone parents have less than �100 a week with which to bring up their children and pay the bills. Poor nutrition leads to bad performance at school and worse health, with associated costs to the National Health Service. It is estimated that it would cost Britain �10 billion to eradicate the problem. The chancellor, Gordon Brown, has been briefed on the contents of the report and is set to enter the poverty debate to mark its publication. Treasury sources said that Brown believes childhood poverty is one of the most serious problems affecting Britain. He is planning a raft of new measures to tackle the issue. A multi-million pound package will be announced in summer's comprehensive spending review. Funding for the sure start programme, which helps children up to the age of three, will be increased so that the number of programmes will be doubled to 400. A children's fund will also be set up to help people up to the age of 19. Brown has set up a task force with the education secretary, David Blunkett, and the social security secretary, Alistair Darling, to look at the issue. The prime minister has said he wants to see poverty eradicated 'i n a generation'. The fund will be used to give children better drugs education and health advice. It will also be used to help parents find jobs and cheap childcare so that their wages will not be soaked up by high childcare costs. Brown has also asked Maeve Sherlock, the director of the National Council for One Parent Families, to sit on the influential Council of Economic Advisers to guide policy formulation. The Government has faced criticism that, although it has put millions of pounds into relieving child poverty which it says is a priority, it still needs to do more. 'Gordon Brown cut the rate of income tax by 1p,' said Jonathan Bradshaw of York University. 'That money could have been used to help the most vulnerable people. That would have shown a real commitment.' Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
