TWO major announcements by the UK Labour Government are set to help raise more children out of poverty and young people into work here in East Lothian and across the country.
The Prime Minister was in Glasgow to launch the Government’s ambitious new Child Poverty Strategy, which sets out plans to cut child poverty by over half a million by the end of the decade.
Informed by the work of the Child Poverty Taskforce established last year, the strategy will aim to improve children’s lives and life chances now and tackle the root causes of child poverty in the long term.
It sets out a series of new measures across the key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs and better local support, especially in the early years. The strategy has been welcomed by many in the voluntary sector, including Save the Children UK, which said it contains “bold measures to improve childhoods – not the sticking-plaster measures of the past”.
Also announced last week was the Government’s Youth Guarantee to support the almost one million young people in the UK currently not in education, employment or training.
The plan, backed by £820m new funding, will support 360 youth hubs, centres that offer lifechanging support to young people such as CV advice, skills training, mental health support, housing advice and careers guidance.
The investment will also provide intensive work-coach support, training opportunities for more than 300,000 young people and subsidised jobs for 18-21-year-olds who are long-term unemployed on Universal Credit.
This is a step change in support for young people stuck on benefits who have too often been neglected in the past. It will provide opportunities for them to turn their lives around and build a decent future.
Taken together, the Child Poverty Strategy and Youth Guarantee clearly demonstrate the UK Labour Government’s commitment to ensuring that children are lifted out of poverty and no young person is left behind.
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