An open letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham

Dear Prime Minister,

I would like to offer you our warmest congratulations from everyone at Aberlour Children’s Charity on becoming Prime Minister.

I believe we share the same values of equality and social justice and the ambition to see an end to child poverty. I am sure you and your government will work hard to realise and embed these values for the benefit of children, young people and families in Scotland and across the UK. Ending child poverty is the first and most important thing any government must do to if it wants to create a fairer and more equal society.

As the largest solely Scottish children's charity, our driving mission is to end child poverty and make sure that all families who need extra help get the support they need. An entire generation of children has been affected by the damage done by nearly two decades of austerity. This has had a profound impact on the levels of poverty and disadvantage we see at Aberlour every day, within the families we work with and the communities we serve. It is shocking and unacceptable that four million children across the UK are currently growing up in poverty. Children cannot wait any longer for real and sustained action to turn the tide on child poverty.

As part of our mission, we aim to work with government at all levels, and with all political parties, to influence and shape legislation, policy and practice to improve the lives of Scotland’s most disadvantaged and marginalised children, young people and families. I am pleased to say that Aberlour has worked closely with the UK Government in recent years, for example contributing to the work of the Child Poverty Taskforce and the development of the Child Poverty Strategy.

We long campaigned to see an end to the cruel two-child limit and enthusiastically welcomed the action taken by your predecessor to finally end such a harmful and discriminatory policy. However, that one, albeit important, action does not mean that child poverty has now been fixed. Your government must now go much further and faster, with clear and targeted actions that respond to the entrenched and often intersecting challenges in families’ lives, in order to lift children out of poverty for good. We are keen to work with you and your government to help achieve this.

Listening to you speak in recent weeks, I have been particularly encouraged by your message of hope. We often hear from children and families at Aberlour of the hope they feel as a result of the help and support we are able to provide. It is a privilege to be part of the lives of our children and families, and to know that we can help to create hope, where too often there is hopelessness.

Nonetheless, every day we work with families who have to make impossible choices of whether to put food on the table, pay their energy bills or provide adequate clothing for their children. This puts a massive stress on families and creates adversity that impacts on children’s education and learning, their social development and their mental and physical health and wellbeing.

A significant consequence of the overwhelming financial strain that too many struggling families face is debt, and in particular public sector debt in the form of council tax debt, rent arrears and even school meal debt. Aberlour’s research and evidence over many years shows that public sector debt is a fundamental feature of child poverty, too often trapping children and families in poverty. We have described this as a public debt crisis. The State is the single biggest debt collector in the country frequently reducing, rather than increasing, the incomes of our poorest families through deductions from Universal Credit and other benefits or via other punitive debt recovery processes. This has to change if your government is truly committed to ending child poverty.

Since becoming Prime Minister, you have talked about giving families and households ‘breathing space’ by alleviating the financial pressures they are feeling. Aberlour has called on government at UK, Scottish and local levels to tackle the public debt crisis to help end child poverty, and we have illustrated a range of policy solutions to help ease the pressure of that public debt burden and help provide breathing space for so many families across the UK.

The effect of taking action to tackle public debt would not be to put more money in families’ pockets, but to keep money in families’ pockets for the things they need for their children to thrive. This means more money in local economies. It is not a binary choice between ending poverty or driving growth, we can do both at the same time. Ultimately, investment in social security and tackling child poverty is an investment in our communities, our citizens, our children and our shared future.

At Aberlour we will continue to use our voice and influence to help secure the changes that our children, young people and families demand and deserve. To that end, I would be delighted to meet with you and relevant Cabinet colleagues and officials at the earliest opportunity to discuss our priorities further. We are also happy to organise visits and conversations with children, young people and families themselves whenever you visit Scotland. In doing so I hope we can work together to help achieve our shared ambitions to improve the lives of children, young people and families and to end child poverty for good.

Yours,

Justina Murray
Aberlour Chief Executive