North East Mayor Kim McGuinness visits Sunderland charity Love, Amelia to launch new Child Poverty Reduction Unit

Sunderland Echo

The unit will work with the North East’s seven local authorities and the wider childcare system to develop the most effective way of tackling poverty.

Transcript

00:00North East Merkin McGuinness is here at Love Amelie in Hendon. Why are we here today?

00:04We're launching the first ever Child Poverty Reduction Unit. The North East

00:09Child Poverty Reduction Unit is going to work right across our region to

00:12understand what's causing poverty here and to solve it. We are a fantastic place.

00:18This is the best region in the world in my opinion. Every child should grow up

00:21with the best possible opportunity but child poverty holds too many back with

00:26a third of children here growing up in poverty and a quarter of them in work

00:30poverty. So we need to find the solutions and we need to get on with it.

00:33It was a manifesto pledge to do this. Why does it mean so much to you?

00:38Look, it's personal for me. I grew up in this region, a very working class

00:42household but I do feel like I had those opportunities that too many children

00:47simply don't have now and I want to make sure that regardless of your background

00:51you can achieve your aspirations right here in this region and so we're going

00:56to get on with it straight away. The first thing that this region is going to

00:59do is look at delivering the child care grant that was pledged in my manifesto

01:04to support those families who are getting back into work or training to

01:07increase their income who simply can't afford the child care.

01:10And what's the support been from the other North East leaders? Everyone on board?

01:14Well we've had everyone here today. It's been fantastic. We will only tackle this

01:18problem if we do it together and so it's fantastic to have the support of all of

01:22our local authorities as well as brilliant organisations like Love Amelia

01:26here who are on the ground tackling that poverty day-to-day and the North East

01:30Child Poverty Commission who've done wonderful work in already understanding

01:34what the issues are and what the solutions will be that we'll need to

01:37deliver across our region.

01:39Beth Farhart is chair of the North East Child Poverty Commission.

01:42How big a problem is it in the region?

01:44Well a third of babies, children and young people in the North East are

01:49currently living in poverty. It's a huge issue so it's great to be here at

01:53the launch of Mayor Kim McGuinness' Child Poverty Reduction Unit which is

01:59very much about taking a strategic approach, bringing together cross sectors

02:03to work together as a region to tackle the issue of child poverty and the

02:08launch of the Child Care Support Grant is just a first measure in that journey

02:14and as chair of the North East Child Poverty Commission you know we have been

02:18calling for that for a while now to kind of bring regional partners together

02:22to take this issue to UC and I think this is the start of that under the

02:26new combined authority so I'm really pleased to be part of the initiative today.

02:30Obviously though we're limited in what we can do locally, what help would you like to see from national government?

02:34So child poverty is very policy responsive and we know that from recent history

02:39so what the government can do very soon, as soon as possible, is to scrap the

02:45two child benefit cap that would help so many families immediately but also to

02:51see an expansion of free school meals across the board that would immediately

02:54help a lot of a lot of hunger that we find in the region and would also save

03:00families so much money. It would also give increased people premium for

03:04schools as well so that's really important that that's introduced very

03:07soon but also we want to see things like the introduction of an essentials

03:11guarantee for those families who are on universal credit so that they've got

03:15enough income to live and not just exist but also more immediately actually we

03:22need to see the extension of the household support fund which is due to

03:25end at the end of September. Now that's a lifeline for many families that are

03:30suffering hardship across the Northeast so they're kind of forky things that the

03:35government could do nationally to help us immediately.

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