Tackling child poverty could be Labour’s defining mission – and its best chance to stop Reform UK’s rise, writes Lord John Bird

12 May 2025, 09:23 | Updated: 12 May 2025, 09:38

By Lord John Bird

Tackling poverty could be the unifying issue Labour needs to fight back against the rise of Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

I was born into poverty and raised in two slum rooms in Notting Hill, West London, long since demolished. Money was scant. There was no bathroom, a small kitchen, shared toilets and grime and dirt on every horizon. I was surrounded by violence, illness, drunkenness and crime. When I say I know what it’s like to be a child in poverty, I know it in my bones.

I would hate to see us return to the painful poverty of the years from which I came. But it seems to me that the politics of today are inadequately equipped to stop the slide of more and more children falling into poverty. In our affluent, modern country, 4.3 million children – around three-in-ten – live in relative poverty. Our relative child poverty rate is higher than any other EU nation bar Greece. The Resolution Foundation says nothing in the government’s armoury of new policies will turn things round – in fact, if Labour follow their current course of action, child poverty will rise to 4.6 million by 2030, its highest level since the turn of the century.

It's a moral abhorrence, but that doesn’t seem to be waking this Labour government up. Something that might shake them from their slump though: the recent drubbing in local elections that saw them lose two-thirds of the seats they contested, and most painfully of all, Reform UK snatching the Runcorn by-election by six votes.

Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. And the pernicious populist vines of Reform UK are taking hold like Japanese knotweed in the face of two major parties who have lost the trust of the electorate. Something must change if Labour stands a chance of winning a second term, but finding a unifying issue will be no mean feat.

But an issue that unites supporters of all parties does exist. According to a new YouGov poll by the Big Issue, 72% of all Brits agree that this government needs to do more to tackle poverty in the UK. Voters for every party in their majority demand further action. Perhaps most compellingly, it’s a significant issue for those jumping ship to Reform UK – 68% of those supporting the party think poverty is a key area where this government is failing.

The public perceives that this government, like many before them, is simply muddling through – dabbling with sticking plasters rather than long-term, seismic solutions for society. It’s time to hold their feet to the fire.

My new amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill, which is currently being prepared for scrutiny at committee stage in the House of Lords, would place a new duty on the government to set targets for the reduction of child poverty. Politically, I intend this as a gift to the Prime Minister. A way to signal to supporters he’s losing left, right and centre that his government is sitting up and listening. And morally, for that child in poverty, his action is an absolute necessity.

You can support the Big Issue’s call for the government to be held to account through the setting of poverty reduction targets by signing its new petition.

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Lord John Bird is the co-founder of the Big Issue and, as an independent crossbench peer, he has dedicated his time in the House of Lords to seeing poverty eradicated in his lifetime.

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