‘To last, the child poverty strategy must be grounded in human rights’

When Rachel Reeves defended the Labour Government’s decision to scrap the two-child limit, she was clear about the stakes:“We’ve got to make sure that no party ever feels that they can get away with reversing this policy” she said. 

She’s right. The question is how.

The UK Government’s new Child Poverty Strategy, published at the end of last year, is a long-overdue shift after years of rising child poverty. The commitment to lift an estimated 550,000 children out of poverty by 2030, alongside wider support for 7.1 million children, is one of the most significant interventions in over a decade. Combined with the removal of the two-child limit, it represents a genuine victory for families, campaigners and the Labour party’s promise of change.

Expanding free school meals, improving energy support and increasing childcare assistance will make a real difference to families struggling with the cost of living. The UK Government’s engagement with people with lived experience is also welcome and essential. This strategy shows that political choices matter, and that a different direction is possible.

READ MORE: ‘Farage’s two-child cap U-turn exposes who he really is: a grifter’

To ensure that no future government can quietly dismantle these gains, this strategy must be the beginning – not the end. Because without a clear human rights-based foundation, progress on child poverty will always remain vulnerable to political cycles, fiscal pressures and shifting priorities.

Child poverty is not just an economic inefficiency or a drag on productivity. It is a human rights violation. Children have the right to an adequate standard of living now, not later, and not only if the markets are stable enough. Yet the current strategy does not explicitly recognise economic, social and cultural rights as its guiding framework.

That omission matters.

Manifestos, missions and policy commitments can be reversed. Enforceable rights are harder to undo. If the Labour Government is serious about making child poverty reduction permanent, it needs to anchor these policies in a framework that outlasts any single parliament.

Earlier this year, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued a stark report on the UK, warning that persistent poverty, food insecurity and pressure on social protection systems are undermining people’s rights. The UN did not only call for better intentions, but also for clear targets, robust monitoring, meaningful participation and adequate resourcing. In other words, accountability.

That is precisely what a rights-based approach offers. Economic, social and cultural rights – to housing, food, healthcare, social security, education and decent work – provide a practical architecture for turning political promises into durable protections. They give people a guarantee that their needs will be met, and a route to accountability when they are not.

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The UK Government’s renewed focus on temporary accommodation shows why this approach is so urgently needed. More than 172,000 children in England are currently living in temporary accommodation, often in overcrowded, unsafe and unstable conditions that damage their health, education and wellbeing.

Acknowledging this crisis is long overdue, and the measures announced are necessary. But they also expose the limits of policy without rights. Temporary accommodation has become a semi-permanent feature of childhood for too many families because we have failed to tackle the structural drivers – a shortage of genuinely affordable housing and chronic underfunding of local authorities.

This matters not only for people’s well-being and social justice, but for democracy itself. Poverty, insecurity and declining living standards erode trust in institutions and push people towards extreme solutions that will ultimately betray them. If the Labour Government wants to rebuild trust and safeguard democracy, it must show that government can be relied upon to meet people’s day-to-day needs.

Rachel Reeves is right: the gains made on child poverty must be protected from reversal. The surest way to do that is not just political will, but political infrastructure – embedding economic, social and cultural rights into law and policy so that progress cannot be easily undone.

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The Labour Government has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to tackle child poverty in a way that lasts. The Child Poverty Strategy is a welcome step. Now it must be anchored in a rights-based framework that makes dignity, security and fairness non-negotiable, for this UK Government, and for every one that follows.

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