Why is maintaining the £20 a week uplift to Universal Credit important for child health?
As part of the financial support package introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak last March, payments of Universal Credit were temporarily increased by £20 a week. It was introduced in recognition of the additional challenges faced by families in receipt of this benefit as a result of the pandemic. The policy is currently due to end in March.
Universal Credit is the benefit introduced in 2013 by the Coalition Government. It attempted to simplify the welfare system by combining six means-tested benefits — child tax credit, housing credit, income support, jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance and working tax credit — into one single monthly payment. It has been rolled out across most of the UK, though some households are still in receipt of legacy benefits such as Employment and Support Allowance.
COVID-19 has had a devastating social and economic impact on the most vulnerable families in our society. Those who were previously managing are now struggling to make ends meet. This uplift to Universal Credit has provided a lifeline to millions of families over the last year.
A growing coalition of charities, politicians and civil society groups are calling on the Government to make the temporary uplift to Universal Credit permanent, and to extend the same uplift to legacy benefits. We have joined them.
Led by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the coalition is urging the Government to provide certainty to families, and prevent further households from plunging in to poverty. The number of people claiming Universal Credit since last March has increased by 90%. A failure to extend the uplift will see over 6 million households lose £1040 a year overnight.
The links between poverty and poor health outcomes are well established. Our State of Child Health 2020 report showed that over 4.1 million children live in poverty in the UK. Children living in poverty are more likely to have low birth weight, be obese, have chronic health conditions and have poor mental health. This has implications for their academic achievement, employment prospects and ability to fulfil their potential.
The reasons child poverty leads to poor health outcomes are undoubtedly complex; deployed through a combination of biological, environmental, behavioural and psychosocial factors. RCPCH members see the impact of poverty on their patients on their shifts every day. We undertook research with the Child Poverty Action Group in 2018, which surveyed paediatricians about the impact of poverty on child health. They cited poor housing conditions, reduced access to a healthy diet and constant stress and worry as accumulating in significant negative impact on children and young people’s physical and mental health.
Whilst the pandemic has undoubtedly exacerbated the harsh realities of life in poverty, and exposed more households to deprivation , rates were already rising. Before the pandemic, child poverty was projected to rise to 5.2 million children by 2022. The Institute for Government’s analysis shows that since 2011–12, relative child poverty has increased by 3 percentage points. This is the most sustained rise in relative child poverty since the early 1990s.
The trajectory is extremely worrying. Modelling by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that if the Government does not make the Universal Credit uplift permanent, a further 300,000 children will go in to poverty overnight.
Whilst we have all been in the same pandemic storm over the last year, we have not all been in the same boat. COVID-19 has both compounded and exposed the inequalities entrenched in health. The excess mortality rates due to the virus in the most socioeconomically deprived areas are proof of this. Deprived communities bear the brunt of the wider negative impacts of the pandemic. There is more public understanding of health inequality than there was this time last year. The Government should be bold and make a decision — perhaps formerly viewed as politically unpopular — to do the right thing. A recent survey undertaken by Unite shows that more than half of people surveyed would support the uplift being extended and made permanent.
Along with other health organisations, we have written to the Prime Minister to make the health case for maintaining the uplift, and extending it to legacy benefits. We will continue to press Government on this matter in the run up to the Spring Budget, due to take place on the 3rd March. A failure to keep the lifeline for the most vulnerable families risks damaging the life chances of a generation of children and young people. The Government must do the right thing, make the uplift permanent, and extend it to legacy benefits.
