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Press Release

Child poverty targets need disability at their heart

Tuesday 27 March 2007
Speaking in advance of the publication of the Government's strategy, Sir Bert Massie, DRC Chairman said:

With the Government's progress in meeting its target to halve child poverty by 2010 widely expected not to be met, the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) says that the focus should shift to ensuring that the strategy on tackling child poverty - to be launched by the Government today - had disability at its heart.
Child poverty targets need disability at their heart

“With one in three children living in poverty having at least one disabled parent (264,000 being lone parents) this is not a matter of 'special pleading', but a determining factor in whether the Government’s child poverty goals will be reached. For the huge numbers of families affected by disability, the Government’s child poverty strategy is critical to improving their life chances, and to the Department for Work and Pensions’ lead role in promoting equality for disabled people.”

While respecting the difficult choices facing Government in achieving the 2010 target, Sir Bert stressed that the link between disability and child poverty should be a key feature that informs the Government's approach:

“It would be extremely unfortunate if the first significant policy initiative by the DWP since the Disability Equality Duty came into force failed to address the circumstances of families affected by disability. Given the challenges faced in securing commitment to equality for disabled people across Government, failure to send a positive message about the priority accorded to disability equality by its lead Department would inevitably undermine this work.”

Sir Bert said he expected that the policy would be subject to a Disability Impact Assessment, as required by law.

He cautioned that if disability issues were missing in the announcement today, it would have serious long term consequences for millions of families in Britain:

“Getting this policy right is also going to be critical if we are to avoid a situation where in 2010, families affected by disability account for an even greater proportion of the total number of children living in poverty.”



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