Do our governments care about all children’s poverty?

Access to Justice Project Lead, Isata Kanneh, argues that UK and Welsh Governments need to take more radical action if they are serious about tackling poverty for all children, including those whose parents moved to the UK.

The Welsh Government Child Poverty Strategy makes a bold claim to set long–term objectives that will contribute to the ultimate eradication of child poverty. Its introduction talks of “equity” and “inclusion”. It speaks of Welsh Government’s ambitions for “all children”. This is very admirable – until we look at the substance. 

To someone working in the field of migrant justice, the claims ring hollow. The strategy makes brief reference to improving financial inclusion, access to education, and access to information and advice for asylum seekers and refugees and for Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller communities. Search for “migrants” or “migration”, however, and there is not a single mention. There is no reference, either, to families who have No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF), or to the extreme levels of poverty that the policy forces children into.  

Using Welsh Government data on Relative Income Poverty, the strategy states:  

 There [is] a 40% likelihood of people whose head of household is Black, Asian or minority ethnic living in relative income poverty. This compares to a 22% likelihood for those whose head of household comes from a white ethnic group.

There are reasons for this. Black and minority ethnic people are more likely to be unemployed, be low paid, and be in insecure work, than their peers who are white. The inequalities particularly affect Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and African communities. Black and minority ethnic women are hit hardest. Systemic racism continues to affect visible minorities in a way that causes profound disadvantage for their children and keeps families in poverty. Yet, while the Child Poverty Strategy makes general reference to discrimination in relation to various protected characteristics, it repeatedly fails to grasp the nettle and to address racism specifically. Worse, it fails to explain what Welsh Government plans to do to tackle the poverty that racism causes.  

Immigration law and policy are similarly absent from the strategy’s list of concerns. Migrant children, and British children and those with settled status whose parents have migrated to the UK, are to all intents and purposes invisible when it comes to statutory efforts to eradicate child poverty. They do not appear in the statistics used to inform the Welsh Government strategy because data that is collected at a statutory level consistently ignores them.  

This lack has not been addressed in consultation or in the process of drawing up the strategy because policy makers remain obtusely blind to most migrant groups in Wales. Yet, evidence shows that immigration policies, particularly those of the ‘hostile environment’ and the No Recourse to Public Funds Condition, are a direct cause of child poverty. Children with No Recourse to Public Funds are not considered worthy of Child Benefit. In Wales, despite a campaign supported by many organisations, including the NRPF Coalition Wales, the Children’s Commissioner Wales, and the Future Generations Commissioner Wales, children in secondary schools with NRPF are not entitled to free school meals. Parents with No Recourse to Public Funds often work long hours in exploitative conditions, yet have no entitlement to most in-work benefits, and cannot rely on the safety net of welfare benefits such as Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, Disability Living Allowance, or many of the emergency relief schemes that are vital in an economic crisis.  

No Recourse to Public Funds has a devastating effect on a child’s life and its effects can hamper individuals and families for decades. Being a migrant in the UK is seriously bad for your health, your wealth, and your life chances. In 2023, a study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that at least 1,195,800 individuals who were born abroad were destitute in the UK. No less than 28 per cent of these were children. 

Perhaps the Welsh Government Child Poverty Strategy avoids mentioning migration out of embarrassment. It is difficult to demonstrate determination to tackle poverty while working within a policy framework that drives millions of adults and children into it by design. It is a bit like launching an equal opportunities policy without abolishing slavery. To some extent, the hands of Welsh Government are tied. No Recourse to Public Funds is a UK government policy, and devolved nations have no control over immigration law or policy that is set from Westminster. But with the change of UK government, it is less easy for Welsh Government to distance itself from UK government policy. 

As the UK government prepares to launch its own Child Poverty Strategy in early 2025, people working for migrant justice are braced to see whether it will be a strategy that is truly designed to challenge poverty as it affects all children. The Welsh Government strategy will not do so, despite being based on a vision for Wales: 

 …that enables children and young people to access their rights, have good wellbeing and fulfil their potential no matter what their background or circumstances (including their socio-economic circumstances).

Fine words. But, as the saying goes, they butter no parsnips. Only practical action, based on equality, and aimed at all children who face poverty and destitution, will inspire confidence that governments care for our children too.