What are labour doing to help people I poverty /low income/cost of living

[Asking2024]

Hi is anyone able to explain to me in simple terms what labour are doing for familys in poverty/low income /struggling.

The only thing I have heard about is setting up free breakfast clubs for all.

Im Wondering about people in work but low wage /income.

Also people who are not able to work. For what ever reason ie carer , disability, etc

Or people who are out of work but finding it hard to get suitable work.

It has only been 2 weeks and Parliament has only just been opened so not much done yet. Hopefully yesterday is the start of turning the tide, you mentioned the breakfast clubs but other things so far:

• Setting better standards for work - no more exploitative zero hour contracts where people aren't able to have a steady income. and adding more workers rights.
• A Race Equality Bill will extend the right to make equal pay claims under the Equality Act to ethnic minority workers and disabled people, and bring in new pay reporting requirements for bigger firms

Free breakfast clubs aren't going to happen objectively. They can have all the lovely ideals they'd like, but that one is never going to be logistically possible. 'Right, hands up who wants to work from 7.30am to 8.30am for £10 an hour? We need a few tens of thousands.'
'Oh. No one. Who would have thought it.'

there are many people who would be happy to work these kinds of hours to fit in around childcare or other commitments. My neighbour works one as she's a pensioner and she loves it because of the times of work.

And it'll be £11.44 for those 21 and over if the wage is set to minimum wage.

free breakfast clubs are actually a very easy win with good results across the board. Most schools already have a BC going on and have the facilities.

I forgot to ask in my op . I have also been hearing that they want to try and bring down the usage of food banks . So I'm wondering about that to.

Lots of schools already run free breakfast clubs. Kids who’ve eaten have objectively better behaviour and so results, which means it’s a fairly obvious thing for schooos to do, especially in deprived areas where many kids have no reliable access to nutritious food outside of school. It’ll be nice to have a bit of money behind it, tbh so that staff no longer have to pay for the food themselves.

Id be surprised if they did anything of use really 😕

you mean like the previous 14 years of Government ensuring more and more people were in poverty?

Don't really care about them being free but what they need to do is have special needs schools providing breakfast and after school clubs just like other schools do......parents with SN kids are often forced into poverty because unless they have bloody good family support they're fucked. There are no options, especially as kids become older and still need care.

I don't know of any and in the area where I live some have even stopped staff who provide respite from taking the child directly from school, the child has to go home first and be collected from there. It's restrictive and inconvenient for the family and the support staff.

I think the obvious one is to increase the wages of anyone working in childcare settings

Not talking about teachers here. TA's, nursery, ASC etc

Because who wants that job at minimum wage!?

Points taken about in some areas/situations breakfast club hours work as a job. I think my point is that - how can you possibly guarantee that will be the case everywhere? My thinking is that in the more deprived areas, the exact ones free breakfast clubs are needed, is where the work force would not be.

I'll share my experience of free breakfast club in my area. Please note that I grew up in poverty on a rough council estate in the 60s/70s so I do have some understanding.

Where I live, the catchment primary serves about 50/50 a fairly rough council estate and an affluent private estate of mainly 4 bed detached and very little in between.

Breakfast club was almost exclusively used by families in the private estate as it allowed them to get to work so was really just free childcare. The council estate kids rarely used it as they'd tend to have chaotic homes where they were often late for school never mind being there in time for breakfast.

Obviously there were exceptions to this but that was pretty much the situation. Kids were still arriving having had no breakfast or in the case of older primary ones, having stopped at the shop for sweets or crisps.

I don't know what the answer is, but a lot of support needs to happen in communities to stop this cycle and get families and kids more than a bowl of cornflakes that they are not at school on time to eat.

But why are they area's in deprivation?
Some areas is due to their local industry collapsing/leaving. Some is due to the area having seasonal only jobs (many seaside area's).
Deprived area's do not = no-one to work, it's a lack of funding in that area of the economy.

I can definitely see your point on that, there will still be kids who fall through the cracks. But i'd hope that when the free breakfast clubs are rolled out across the board and there is more push on it, the kids being left behind can be easier spotted and helped.

They've had 2 weeks and you can't have looked if you really haven't seen anything.

There are labour reforms to end explotative zero hours contracts, housebuilding to ease the housing crisis, a taskforce re childhood poverty, an end to no fault evictions, new employment protections, changes to mental health care....

What were you hoping for?

The staff situation was never a problem though. The TAs/support staff did a rota to cover the earlier start and the cleaner ended up being the "chef". These were all local people from the community who the DC already had a relationship with.

They also made sure that they had a toothbrushing session afterwards with labelled toothbrushes and paste and sterilised brushes regularly too.

Breakfast clubs are really very easy to introduce in schools, especially in areas that need them most. I've done it at two schools (funded by the school, for the very clear benefits they bring).

There will always be TAs who are glad of the extra hours, you don't need to find new staff and you use the hall or the classrooms.

I think you're letting your ingrained prejudices colour your perception.

Yes, some families who don't need the provision will use it. Thata fine, no one wants it to be stigmatised as something only poor people use. Also some of the most struggling families we see are working parents.

Yes, some families won't manage to get DC there, but most families, even poor ones, do want the best for their children and even if DC only sometimes make it on time, it still has a benefit.

The older (7+) children of the most chaotic families, used to fending for themselves, will make sure they get there in time to be fed 😪

Agreed.

I remember the Stigma of being the Free School Meals kid, you lined up separately from everyone else. Making everyone have access helps remove that negative association.

I don't have ingrained predudices either way. I know many of the families living in poverty have working parents, I was one of those children.

I'm saying what I experienced. If others experienced differently then that's good. I think our school was in a strange situation of not having many families in the middle circumstances just due to its particular location.

I was eventually a free school meals kid but they didn't exist in my youngest school days.

I'd love to think that this initiative would reach the people who need it but I'm also aware that the school staff know exactly who needs it but without going to their houses and dragging them in what are they gonna do?

Same in my area. The breakfast club kids are those whose parents work in professional jobs.

Why are you dismissing that posters lived experience? How can you possibly know which children use the breakfast club in her area?

As I said earlier, I've set up breakfast clubs in two schools in deprived area, so my experience is current. Of course you're not going to reach everyone in need, as you won't with any endeavour, but it's still invaluable for those you do reach. I'm sick of hearing the "but people won't help themselves" narrative because my experience is that the vast majority really will.

PP is tarring everyone with the brush of a few highly visible families, and dismissing those quietly getting on and doing the best they can in incredibly challenging circumstances.

She doesn't know which families use breakfast club and why/why not. She only has her perception of that.

But what are the task force doing to end poverty?

House building. Is this for people to buy? Or is it social housing for homeless families