under New Labour continued from previous page 9
Worse was to come on 10 June this year when the government reluctantly released a plethora of figures in a 200-page report known as the Households Below Average Income statistics – and that was before Scotland's situation was documented. The Scottish figures aside, the report revealed that there are up to 6.4 million children and pensioners in Britain below the poverty line.
The statistics were originally scheduled for release around the time of the 10p tax debacle and before to the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, but it seemed there was only too much bad news the public could take and perhaps Labour now realised there will never be a good day in the foreseeable length left of this parliament on which to bury the proverbial bad news.
Commenting on the latest figures, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) noted that inequality in Britain was equal to its highest level since figures were available in 1961. They reveal that across the UK, the number of children in ‘relative’ poverty rose by an average 100,000 year on year to 2.9 million (or 3.9 million after their family housing costs are taken into account). 2006/7 was the second year in a row that child poverty had drastically shot upwards.
As
in 2006, with the Unicef lambasting Britain’s record on the
treatment of children, and at a time it was revealed there had been
no impact on the reduction of
child poverty in
Britain, so too now do
we find Britain’s treatment of its minors coming under scrutiny in
the week that the new child poverty figures were released.
A report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child from the four UK children's commissioners, on 9 June, painted a harrowing picture of life for Britain’s kids.
Sir Al Aynsley-Green, England's children's commissioner, said: "Poverty is, in our view, the single most pernicious influence that is blighting the lives and prospects of our young people. We are one of the richest countries in the world. Yet Unicef has found that we have some of the highest levels of poverty. Poverty underpins most of the other social issues we are concerned with."
The report demanded that the Convention on the Rights of the Child to be incorporated into UK law so that children's rights are recognised and legally binding, observing how children's rights have deteriorated in many regards since the last time the UN committee reported on the Government's track record.
Kathleen Marshall, the commissioner for children in Scotland, demanded the UK fully implements the UNCRC, saying: "We have highlighted areas that remain a concern, including significant differences in juvenile justice in some parts of the UK and the public's attitudes towards children and young people.”
The commissioners argued for “urgent reforms” noting that that the age of criminal responsibility is among the lowest in Europe: eight in Scotland and ten in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Neither, did they feel, was custody being used as the very last resort, predominantly in England and Wales, where there are presently 2,837 children in custody,
Frances Cook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, was one of many already aware that the governments hankering after more juvenile justice contradicted the reported drop in juvenile crime and urged that the use of physical restraint on children be banned.
With Labour keen to be seen “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”, though few in government will openly admit that poverty causes crime, ever ready to ride the waves of moral panic, it is no more likely that we’ll see cops giving ‘hoodies” and infantile chavs a friendly pat on the head than we’ll see the total eradication of child poverty in Britain by 2020.
Rather than distributing wealth and claiming to have, as its priority, the eradication of child poverty, improving the education and prospects of our children, Labour in fact redistributes poverty like no other government in the industrialised world.
Of course, come election time, Brown and co will make the same staid old pronouncements on their commitment to eradicate child poverty, hoping working class historical amnesia will carry them through to a fourth victory, confident their lies and betrayals and rampant hypocrisy will be concealed by an excess of promises for the future and pathetic excuses for past failings. Meanwhile, their Tory and Lib-Dem detractors, ever critical of New Labour’s record on children will be presenting us with their own visions of smiley face capitalism in which the profit-driven market system will be magically made cognizant of the needs of children.
JOHN BISSETT
| Socialist Standard July 2008 | 10 |