Action on Child Poverty
One of the responsibilities I had in the 2005-2010 Parliament was in championing Child Poverty issues for my own party. In 2009 I sat on the Child Poverty Bill Committee - the type of committee which examines a bill line-by-line. As part of the committee we took evidence from charities involved in dealing with child poverty and also from local councils who are already undertaking a lot of work to break the cycle of deprivation for families in their areas. It now looks certain that the UK will miss its target to halve child poverty by 2010, falling short by 600,000 children.
I have now had meetings with seven of the leading charities involved in Child Poverty.
It is important that we do not focus only on the symptoms of poverty. We need to do more than use tax credits to shift people from just below the poverty line to just above. We need to tackle the long term causes of poverty such as children growing up in workless households, educational underachievement and family breakdown.
The charity Action for Children gave me the chance to make a tangible local contribution to the debate by marooning me and others on Temple Island in the Thames with only a mobile phone until we had personally raised over £1,000 each for the charity. I was pleased to beat the target and together we raised over £6,000. This was a good example of a practical link between Westminster and what happens in the constituency. The amount we raised went towards helping the most vulnerable children and young people in the UK.
(Photo courtesy of Aeciss.com)
