Labour Manifesto: Child poverty

“Just look at the last seven [years of Conservative government]: more children living in poverty...”

• There’s been little change in child poverty levels and rates comparing 2015/16 to 2009/10, according to official data from the Department for Work and Pensions.
• There are different ways to measure child poverty in the UK. They’ll tell you that anywhere between 2.3 and 4 million children are in poverty in 2015/16, compared to between 2.5 and 3.9 million in 2009/10. The exact figures depend on whether you include the costs of housing and whether you look at ‘relative’ or ‘absolute’ poverty.
• On any measure, the number of children in poverty hasn’t changed significantly since 2009/10, the last full year of the Labour government.
• There have been signs that relative child poverty may be increasing in the last few years, comparing to 2013/14. But absolute poverty over the same period hasn’t shown the same trend, and may even be down slightly.