Next week, Chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce the outcome of her Spending Review. This means she will explain how much money is available for different public services and support in the coming years.

Gingerbread has joined with other national charities to call on Ms Reeves to include strong action to reduce child poverty.

Collectively, we want to see the two-child limit and the benefit cap abolished. This matters because the two-child limit is pushing over 100 children into poverty every single day. Around half of those families affected are single-parent families. Single-parent households are almost twice as likely to live in poverty compared to couple households.

Getting rid of the two-child limit and the benefit cap will immediately lift 400,000 children out of poverty. Charities including Gingerbread, Save the Children and Citizens Advice have written to the Chancellor, asking her to take action.

At Gingerbread, we also want to see the following actions to tackle child poverty among single-parent households:

• Improvements to childcare support
• Strengthened flexible working rights
• Significant reform of child maintenance, as set out in our #FixTheCMS report.

Wider reform of the Universal Credit system is also vital if the government is serious about tackling child poverty. We’re asking the government to ensure that

• The level of UC is enough to support single parents make ends meet
• There is genuine help for single parents to find suitable work. We would like to see single-parent specialist work coaches in Jobcentres.
• The system is less punitive and more supportive, as set out in our #SupportNotPunish.

These are the key actions we are calling on Ministers to include in their child poverty strategy. We expect the strategy to be published in the autumn. We know the government is starting to listen. Last month, Employment Minister Alison McGovern confirmed that CMS reform would be part of the child poverty strategy. She also said that the strategy would look at parental employment. She noted the importance of ensuring work coaches were tailoring support to individuals. She was speaking at a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Single Parent Families. We welcomed her comments and will be working to make sure the government takes the right actions to help single parents.

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