The Labour government has launched its long-awaited child poverty strategy, vowing to give every child in the UK a good start in life. The plan, announced on Friday 5 December 2025, includes scrapping the controversial two-child benefit limit and ending the unlawful use of bed and breakfast accommodation for families.
A Moral Mission with Concrete Measures
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described tackling child poverty as a "moral mission for me". The strategy comes as a record 4.45 million children are living in poverty across the UK. The government argues that failing to address this issue not only harms children but also holds back the national economy, as young people from deprived backgrounds tend to achieve less in school and earn less as adults.
The centrepiece of the plan is the abolition of the two-child limit on benefits from April next year, a move first announced in Chancellor Rachel Reeves's recent Budget. This policy alone is projected to lift 450,000 children out of poverty by 2029/30 at a cost of £3 billion. Combined with other initiatives, such as the wider rollout of free school meals, the government claims its overall strategy will rescue 550,000 children from poverty by 2030.
Housing and Healthcare Reforms
A significant focus of the strategy is on improving housing conditions for vulnerable families. The government has pledged to end the practice of placing families in bed and breakfasts beyond the legal six-week limit. It will also continue an £8 million pilot programme across 20 local authorities with the highest numbers of families in such accommodation.
Homelessness minister Alison McGovern expressed profound shock at recent findings, stating she would consider herself "a failure" if babies were still being discharged from hospital into B&Bs when her tenure ends. This follows a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group which found that 74 children, including 58 babies, had died in recent years with temporary accommodation cited as a possible factor.
New rules will require councils to notify schools, health visitors, and GPs when a child is placed in temporary housing. The government also plans to work directly with the NHS to stop the discharge of newborns into unsuitable accommodation.
Criticism and Calls for Greater Ambition
Despite the announced measures, campaigners and crossbench peers have warned that the strategy lacks the teeth needed to enact lasting change. Big Issue founder Lord John Bird, who experienced poverty as a child, criticised the absence of "ambitious targets" and warned against "warm words" that may not lead to tangible progress.
The National Children's Bureau echoed this concern, stating it wanted to see "binding targets for further reductions over 10 years", a level of ambition it found sadly missing from the published plan. Charities like Crisis and Shelter welcomed the focus on housing but urged the government to go further by unfreezing housing benefit and committing to a major programme of social housebuilding.
Think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) provided analysis showing the scrapping of the two-child limit would have a proportionally greater impact in regions with higher child poverty. It forecast that the North West would see the largest reduction, with around 90,000 children lifted out of poverty by the end of the Parliament.
While organisations like Save the Children UK praised the "bold measures", the government itself acknowledged the strategy is merely "the first step on our road to ending child poverty". As Sir Keir Starmer prepares to meet families in Wales to promote the plan, the debate continues over whether these policies will be enough to reverse the tide for the UK's poorest children.
