Parents in poverty need extra financial support during school holidays
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By John Cowan
With the Easter Holidays coming up, my thoughts turn to the problems faced by parents on low incomes over holiday periods. Children are expensive enough at any time of year but for a family on a low income, holidays present extra challenges on already limited finances.
In Government, Labour has made some progress on addressing the issue of child poverty – the number of children living in low income household has dropped from 3.4m in 1998/99 to 2.9m in 2006/07. But of the 13.2 million people living in poverty in the UK, 54% have at least one child or more. So government needs to do more.
During term time, children have access to free school meals, free fruit and a large proportion of their time taken up. However, holidays can be a nightmare for parents on low incomes. Not only is there the issue of having to provide extra meals – not only to your own children but often their friends as well – but also time taken off work or childcare costs.
True, there are lots of play schemes that run in some areas – more so if you are lucky to live in Labour controlled Council area.
But there remain areas of policy that could still be looked at, for example a special holiday credit to help cover extra costs associated with holidays for low income households with children, which could be credited to Child Tax Credits or other benefits.
Of course the amount of extra holiday benefit tcould be adjusted to reflect that some families have more than one child.
The other benefit of such a credit would be he injection of extra consumer spending into the economy.
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