Growing up in poverty

Analysis of Department for Work and Pensions figures shows that when the Conservatives entered in Government in 2010-11, there were just over 200,000 children from Black households living in poverty. By 2019-20 that figure had risen to over 410,000 – a whopping 101% increase over the decade.
It means that today more than half (53%) of all Black children are now growing up in poverty – one in ten of all children across the country and more than double the rate for white children. It comes as Anneliese Dodds MP, Labour’s Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary, reiterates Labour’s calls for a new Race Equality Act to tackle structural racial inequality at source. Her call follows Labour’s publication last year of a report by Baroness Doreen Lawrence calling for a raft of immediate and long-term measures to protect Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities from the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2010-11 Pakistani children in poverty were 172,721 out of 348,675 total children from the diaspora. In 2019-20, it has increased to 348,675 children in poverty out of 586,314. A rise by 88%. The Bangladeshi community, in 2010-11 had 82,971 children in poverty out of 137,089. Currently it is 145,511, out of 238,164 children. A rise by 75%.
Anneliese Dodds MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, said: “The Conservatives should be ashamed that more than half of Black children are growing up in poverty this Christmas – more than double the number when they took office.
“There is little wonder that child poverty has skyrocketed over the last decade when Conservative ministers have done so little to tackle the structural inequalities driving it.
“More than a year since Labour’s Lawrence Review into the disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Black, Asian and minority ethnic people, it’s also unacceptable that they have still not implemented its 20 recommendations.
“Conservative incompetence and denialism about the existence of structural racism are driving Black children into poverty. Labour has a plan to lift them out of it, with a new Race Equality Act to tackle structural racial inequality at source.”