Poverty

A COURAGEOUS STATEMENT ON POVERTY AT A TIME OF MUCH NEEDED CHANGE

An appreciation by Elizabeth Robson Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers and Phillip Taylor MBE, Head of Chambers and Reviews Editor, "The Barrister"

Former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has offered a pithy statement on poverty in his Foreword to CPAG's new edition (the sixth) of "Poverty: The Facts". Both the book and Foreword are well worth reading whether you like Brown or not because it gives the reader some perspective on what we face today when child poverty is higher than in 1965 when CPAG was formed.

Brown writes that "Poverty: The Facts" should be a call to arms because "there is so much we can do". The list he produces is important for it covers all the main contemporary issues we face: protect children's benefits; invest in housing and childcare to reduce costs and help parents work; tackle low wages and insecure work; and boost productivity.

And Brown concludes that "above all, we need to treat child poverty as a national priority and produce a proper strategy to overcome it". These are, of course, aspirations but ones which can be achieved should the right political and economic climates be right.

This book has a wide appeal to politicians, lawyers, historians and sociologists and has been very well researched by Alan Marsh his colleagues Karen Barker, Carla Aytton, Morag Treanor and Moussa Haddad.

We read this eagerly awaited new edition of CPAG's flagship policy publication at a time of such change and indecision in the UK. CPAG have given us the clearest and most comprehensive picture of poverty in the UK today and it should be read by all MPs although, sadly, that won't happen.

It should shame many of us for not doing enough because we do tend to ignore this issue or put it on the back-burner.

With four million children now living in poverty in Britain, independent experts forecast that the figure is set to rise, so the significant progress made at the turn of the millennium to eliminate child poverty is being reversed. As Gordon Brown says, it is time for a "call to arms"… as he puts it.

Based on the latest official figures, "Poverty: the facts" looks at why UK child poverty rises and falls. And the title gives some answers to the following questions: what do we mean by poverty; how do we measure poverty; who is at risk of poverty; who is in poverty; how does the UK compare with other countries; and what can we do about it? This book has been written by leading academics and policy analysts. We feel that it is essential for anyone wanting to understand the policy and political debates around poverty, and is essential reading for academics, students, social workers, welfare rights workers, financial inclusion teams and the wider policy community.

Thank you, CPAG, for raising the profile rising child poverty at a time when it should be falling and the excuses evaporating.

The book was published on 12th October 2017.