A shocking new report shows that half of all children in Newham are living in poverty.

And East Ham MP Sir Stephen Timms, one of Britain’s leading anti-poverty campaigners has warned that unless urgent action is taken, the situation will get even worse.

Timms says a new strategy is needed to combat the threat to children in the midst of a deepening cost of living crisis.

As workers across the public and private sectors are forced to take industrial action to defend their living standards (Read also Give us justice at work say striking barristers) and when food banks in the Borough are stretched with demands from people unable to feed their families, there are fears that rising poverty levels may trigger social unrest.

“I can well understand these forebodings and I share them myself,” he told Newham Voices, “but what we need, most of all, is a general election and a change of government.”

His call for change comes as the End Child Poverty Coalition (ECPC) released figures showing that 49.5 percent of children in Newham were living below the poverty line between 2020-2021, compared to the average 35 percent for London as a whole.

Nearby Bethnal Green and Bow face an extreme child poverty rate of 56.1 percent.

The latest ECPC report says Newham was among the top 20 UK boroughs with the highest child poverty rates. East Ham was ranked second in the country with 50.1 percent of children living below the poverty line, and nearby West Ham ranked fifth.

Commenting on the figures Timms, who is also Chair of the Parliamentary Work and Pensions Select Committee, said: “Thirteen years ago, I took the Child Poverty Act through Parliament. It required ministers and local authorities to produce and update strategies for tackling child poverty.

“Unfortunately, the Coalition Government repealed the Act. It’s time now to get serious about tackling child poverty again. It causes great harm in the present, but also reduces the country’s economic potential in the future.”

Joseph Howes, the ECPC Chair echoes these concerns. “The numbers may have gone down overall during the ini- tial period of the COVID crisis, but it still feels like we are on the edge of a precipice,” he said, “there is significant concern that they will now rise again sharply with families facing huge cost increases in the coming months.”

The latest figures also show that children from minority ethnic communities are more likely to experience poverty than children from white British families. Between 2019/2020 as much as 48 percent of Black households in the UK were living in poverty, compared to 26 percent of those living in White families.

CEO of the Race Equality Foundation, Jabeer Butt OBE said: “Unfortunately, rather than addressing these failings, the Government pushed more children into poverty by removing the £20 universal credit uplift. The lost education, the lost welfare support and now the cost of living crisis have not only pushed more children from these communities into poverty, but are likely to hinder their ability to use education as a ladder out of poverty in adulthood.”

Alison Garnham, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group says that restoring the value of benefits and ensuring they keep up with inflation must be a priority.

“These are grim figures for London but it’s grimmer still that many of the children who were lifted out of poverty last year by the £20 uplift to Universal Credit have already been forced back over the brink by the decision to cut the uplift,” she said.

But solving the crisis is not just about the welfare of children, says Timms. “It’s not just about supporting individual children,” he told Newham Voices, “it’s also about the well-being of our society and about meeting our country’s potential.”

No news is bad news

Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.

The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less.

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation.

Choose the news. Don’t lose the news.

Monthly direct debit

Annual direct debit

£5 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else, £10 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else and a print copy posted to them each month. £50 annual supporters get a digital copy of each month's paper before anyone else.