Tuesday 24 March,
10.00, Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House
On Tuesday, the Children's Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel
da Souza, will give evidence on the Government's new Child
Poverty Strategy to the Education and Work and Pensions
Committees.
With one in three children in the UK currently living in poverty,
the Education and Work and Pensions Committees are examining how
the Government's new Strategy, published in December, can help
the Government to lift 550,000 children out of poverty.
The Government commissioned Dame Rachel's office to research
children and young people's experience of poverty, with this
research informing the development of the Strategy. Upon
publication, Dame Rachel said children in England were facing “an
almost-Dickensian level of poverty”.
MPs are likely to ask Dame Rachel whether the Strategy is
ambitious or detailed enough to solve this crisis. They may also
ask her for views on the lack of targets or milestones in the
Strategy and the decision to move the Child Poverty Unit from the
Cabinet Office to the Department for Work and Pensions.
Also giving evidence are child poverty campaigners from Child
Poverty Action Group, Citizens Advice, Save the Children UK and
the Institute for Public Policy Research, who all conducted
engagement activities to feed in to the development of the
Strategy.
MPs are likely to ask these witnesses for their views on what, if
any, measures are missing from the Strategy and how ministers
could build support across the political spectrum and with the
public.
Witnesses
From 10.00:
- Dame Rachel de Souza DBE, Children's Commissioner for England
From 11.00:
- Thomas Cave, Head of Policy, Child Poverty Action Group
- Laura Hutchinson, Head of Public Affairs, Citizens Advice
- Priya Edwards, Head of Policy, Research & Influencing,
Save the Children UK
- Henry Parkes, Principal economist and head of quantitative
research, Institute for Public Policy Research
