‘Children of the pandemic’ risk becoming unseen victims

Urgent intervention is needed to ensure that millions of children are not unfairly disadvantaged by the measures to combat the coronavirus crisis.

The IPPR think tank says that an estimated 3.9 million parents may need to care for children because they are no longer in school or childcare. All parents and carers have already faced increased costs for educational materials, internet usage and entertainment. Even those furloughed by their employers under the job retention scheme face a 20 per cent cut to their income.

Added to the financial hardship, almost all the UK’s children are being forced to stay at home, switch to online schooling and endure growing restrictions on their use of outdoor play space.

Therefore, the IPPR is calling for: the right to paid parental leave for those who need to look after children, under the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme; an increase in the child element of Universal Credit and child tax credit by £10 a week, as well as the removal of the two-child limit and the current benefit cap; a one-off emergency Child Benefit payments of £30 each for 12.7 million children; providers to extend free data for use of BBC and other educational websites; and owners of private green spaces to be urged to offer them for public use, especially near crowded town and city neighbourhoods.

Kathy Evans, chief executive of Children England, said:  “We share the concerns described in IPPR's report. Despite the welcome measures so far announced, worsening household poverty and social isolation risk being a major threat to children's and families' health and safety, and to their prospects of recovery from the social and economic impacts of this pandemic.  

"The strain put on children by lack of access to decent food, purposeful activities and space to develop freely could inflict damage that lasts much longer. At this extraordinary moment in our nation's collective life we must deliver on the promise of the welfare state, to ensure the protection, services and support that all children and families need. The government must step up to its role in achieving that."

Carys Roberts, IPPR’s Director, said: “It’s crucial that the government ensure that the poverty, educational and health gaps we and our children already face are not widened further by our response to the pandemic. It’s especially important that policymakers do not overlook the impact of the measures on a generation of the UK’s children, who have least voice in what’s happening but will live with the consequences of our decisions for decades to come.”