Child poverty strategy – our view

On Friday (5 December 25) the UK Government published a new strategy – Our Children Our Future: Tackling Child Poverty. The strategy details the policies that will lift 550,000 children out of poverty by 2030. 

Child poverty is a significant issue for many families raising a disabled or seriously ill child. Parents often cannot work as much as they would like due to their caring responsibilities, and additional costs associated with caring often push families into hardship.

Earlier this year, Family Fund took part in meetings with the Government’s Child Poverty Taskforce. We also shared our research from our Cost of Caring 2025 report with the team writing the Child Poverty Strategy, so we have been looking forward to its publication for some time! 

The strategy brings together many policies which have already been announced, and a few new commitments. It is focused on three areas:  

• Boosting families’ income through social security and work 
• Reducing the cost of living
• Making support available locally

The strategy contains positive news for families, which Family Fund has campaigned for, on the back of our Cost of Caring research.

End of the two-child benefit limit

The strategy gives a commitment to pass a law to end the two-child benefit limit for families on Universal Credit. This was announced in the Budget last week. Family Fund has been proud to be part of the End Child Poverty coalition campaign that helped to bring about this commitment. As part of this campaign, the coalition developed 8 Tests for the strategy, to assess whether it will be as effective as families need it to be.  Coalition members – including Family Fund – will be looking closely at the strategy in the coming weeks to see how it meets the 8 tests.

Childcare review

One big new announcement was that the Department for Education will conduct a childcare review, which will include looking at specialist provision to support parental employment.

One of the points we have highlighted to policy makers is that parent carers often can’t find the right kind of childcare to meet their child’s needs safely, so the review is welcome news. We will seek opportunities for families with disabled children to feed into the review, so that their perspective can help shape the way forward.

Carer’s rights

Work is one of the ways for families to increase income and address poverty, and the strategy acknowledges that parent carers face additional barriers to work. Again this is something we have highlighted to policy makers, based on our research with families. The strategy says the Government will review the Carers Leave Act 2023, to make sure it gives carers the rights they need. This is in addition to the employment changes in the Employment Rights Bill, and the employment support that is part of the welfare reforms in Pathways to Work. 

For those parent carers who want to work more, this is a step in the right direction, but we will be feeding in to this review on behalf of families to make sure that changes to carers rights reflect the reality of caring for a disabled child.

Also our research tells us that work is not the answer to poverty for every family. Many parent carers are themselves disabled, or the intensity of their caring responsibilities mean that work is not an option. It is vital that these families are also supported to have the income they need. We will continue to engage with policy-makers about this, to make sure this point is not lost.

Positive changes

The strategy highlights some other positive changes that are in the pipeline for families:

• A Universal Credit review and a commitment to provide free school meals to all children whose parents get Universal Credit.  
• A commitment to make sure councils take account of vulnerable families when drawing up their policies on Council Tax Benefit. 
• A cap on the cost of school uniform in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. 
• Policies designed to bring down the cost of living – another big issue for families who took part in our last research study. Measures include the reduction in fuel bills announced in the budget, the Government’s food waste trategy, and utility bill schemes such as the Watersure Scheme in England. 
• New Neighbourhood Health Service plans and the focus on children’s health in the 10 Year Plan for the NHS. Funding for new neighbourhood health centres in some of the poorest areas of England was announced in the Government’s Budget last week. 

Impact across the UK

Ministers from different Government departments were involved in the discussions that led to the strategy and the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, the Northern Ireland Executive, and local and regional authorities were also involved. The strategy explains that many measures will be funded and may even be designed differently in the different nations, or in different parts of England. For example, the Scottish Government will publish its Tackling Child Delivery Plan 2026-31 in March 2026. The policy and public affairs team will share details about this when it comes out – so watch this space. 

You can help shape the changes

The Child Poverty Strategy shows how the Government is taking steps to make sure that all children have the opportunity to be healthy and achieve, which is good news. But these policies have to work for families who face extra challenges with poverty because they are raising disabled children.

Here at Family Fund, we will continue to work with the Governments of all the nations of the UK, and other organisations, to help them to understand these challenges. Families are also part of this work. The Government has said that it wants to have meaningful engagement around the strategy, so we will be looking for ways that families can get involved and have their say.  

If you would like to take part in this, please let us know by clicking on the button below.