The unit will work with the North East’s seven local authorities and the wider childcare system to develop the most effective way of tackling poverty.
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00:00North East Merkin McGuinness is here at Love Amelie in Hendon. Why are we here today?
00:04We're launching the first ever Child Poverty Reduction Unit. The North East
00:09Child Poverty Reduction Unit is going to work right across our region to
00:12understand what's causing poverty here and to solve it. We are a fantastic place.
00:18This is the best region in the world in my opinion. Every child should grow up
00:21with the best possible opportunity but child poverty holds too many back with
00:26a third of children here growing up in poverty and a quarter of them in work
00:30poverty. So we need to find the solutions and we need to get on with it.
00:33It was a manifesto pledge to do this. Why does it mean so much to you?
00:38Look, it's personal for me. I grew up in this region, a very working class
00:42household but I do feel like I had those opportunities that too many children
00:47simply don't have now and I want to make sure that regardless of your background
00:51you can achieve your aspirations right here in this region and so we're going
00:56to get on with it straight away. The first thing that this region is going to
00:59do is look at delivering the child care grant that was pledged in my manifesto
01:04to support those families who are getting back into work or training to
01:07increase their income who simply can't afford the child care.
01:10And what's the support been from the other North East leaders? Everyone on board?
01:14Well we've had everyone here today. It's been fantastic. We will only tackle this
01:18problem if we do it together and so it's fantastic to have the support of all of
01:22our local authorities as well as brilliant organisations like Love Amelia
01:26here who are on the ground tackling that poverty day-to-day and the North East
01:30Child Poverty Commission who've done wonderful work in already understanding
01:34what the issues are and what the solutions will be that we'll need to
01:37deliver across our region.
01:39Beth Farhart is chair of the North East Child Poverty Commission.
01:42How big a problem is it in the region?
01:44Well a third of babies, children and young people in the North East are
01:49currently living in poverty. It's a huge issue so it's great to be here at
01:53the launch of Mayor Kim McGuinness' Child Poverty Reduction Unit which is
01:59very much about taking a strategic approach, bringing together cross sectors
02:03to work together as a region to tackle the issue of child poverty and the
02:08launch of the Child Care Support Grant is just a first measure in that journey
02:14and as chair of the North East Child Poverty Commission you know we have been
02:18calling for that for a while now to kind of bring regional partners together
02:22to take this issue to UC and I think this is the start of that under the
02:26new combined authority so I'm really pleased to be part of the initiative today.
02:30Obviously though we're limited in what we can do locally, what help would you like to see from national government?
02:34So child poverty is very policy responsive and we know that from recent history
02:39so what the government can do very soon, as soon as possible, is to scrap the
02:45two child benefit cap that would help so many families immediately but also to
02:51see an expansion of free school meals across the board that would immediately
02:54help a lot of a lot of hunger that we find in the region and would also save
03:00families so much money. It would also give increased people premium for
03:04schools as well so that's really important that that's introduced very
03:07soon but also we want to see things like the introduction of an essentials
03:11guarantee for those families who are on universal credit so that they've got
03:15enough income to live and not just exist but also more immediately actually we
03:22need to see the extension of the household support fund which is due to
03:25end at the end of September. Now that's a lifeline for many families that are
03:30suffering hardship across the Northeast so they're kind of forky things that the
03:35government could do nationally to help us immediately.