This Wednesday (26^th March), the Chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver her Spring Statement to Parliament. These occasions are for the government to announce their plans on taxes and spending.

Childcare

We’re now 2 years on from the last government’s announcements to expand the 30-hour entitlement to childcare to children aged 9 months or older whose parents are in work. The new government is implementing those changes. With the government planning to publish its child poverty strategy later this year, we believe the Chancellor should use this Spring Statement to invest in expanding eligibility for the 30-hour entitlement, at the very least for those who are studying or in training. This would help both to reduce costs for families facing financial challenges and also to expand employment opportunities.

Gingerbread often hears from single parents who want to retrain to secure work that allows them to achieve a better balance of work and parenting responsibilities. However, parents in education or training are currently ineligible for the 30-hour childcare entitlement. This can significantly limit the employment prospects of single parents.

The media is reporting that we are likely to see cuts to rather than investment in public services in this week’s Spring Statement, so we are not hopeful that this change will happen right now. However, we will continue to campaign for this to be included as a future action as part of the government’s forthcoming child poverty strategy.

Social Security

We are also expecting to see more detail in the Spring Statement on the impact of the cuts to disability support announced last week, which are expected to save £5 billion.

At Gingerbread, we have significant concerns about the impact last week’s announcements could have on the 33% of single parents who are disabled. We urge the government to look again at these changes, as they will impact on the government’s ambitions to tackle child poverty.  It’s also important to remember, however, that many of the changes announced are not final and are being consulted on. Scope has more information.

There was also some good news in last week’s announcements. The government announced an increase to the standard allowance of Universal Credit (UC) and more funding for employment support for disabled people.

However, in the round, we’re concerned that the government is going in the wrong direction on social security. It’s clear that the most cost-effective way to tackle child poverty is to invest in social security. This means ensuring UC can cover the essentials, reviewing or abolishing sanctions and ending the two-child limit – an action which alone could lift 300,000 children out of poverty.

In this week’s Spring Statement, we’ll be looking for any indication of future investment in social security. And we’ll continue to highlight how important this is as part of our wider work to influence the child poverty strategy.

Child poverty strategy

Aside from actions around childcare and social security, as part of our work on the child poverty strategy, we are also asking for the government to take significant action to reform child maintenance as well as looking at actions to make work available more flexibly. Changes in these areas don’t need to be announced through the Spring Statement. Join our network and we can update you on our actions in these other areas and how you can get involved.