Media Release - For immediate release
Thursday 22 March
Contact: Steve Broach, 020 7843 6082, [email protected]
The Every Disabled Child Matters campaign welcomes the measures to tackle child poverty announced in the Budget yesterday (21 March 2007). Many families with disabled children stand to benefit from the new investment of a billion pounds focused on the poorest families through Working Tax Credit and an above earnings increase in Child Tax Credit for 2008. All families will benefit from the increase in child benefit levels.
Steve Broach, Every Disabled Child Matters campaign manager, commented:
'Building on the budget, the government's long-awaited child poverty strategy must include specific measures to address child poverty in families with disabled children. These must recognise and tackle the additional costs our families face, such as finding appropriate childcare. Even more important is that the Comprehensive Spending Review delivers significant new resources and a new priority for disabled children when services are commissioned and delivered.'
As a member of the Campaign to End Child Poverty, EDCM is pleased that the Chancellor has recommitted the Government to keep its child poverty promise to millions of children in the UK, including disabled children. However, we are concerned this Budget will not be enough to reach the 2010 target of halving child poverty and are calling on the Government to make further steps towards the necessary extra investment or risk missing the target altogether.
The Chancellor also highlighted in his speech that the government's disabled children's review, part of the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), is 'nearing completion'. He stated that there would be further national, regional and local consultations to determine priority issues for the CSR, building on the work which is already underway in the interdepartmental reviews.
The campaign is calling on its supporters to make sure disabled children are a priority in the CSR. Steve Broach continues 'We need all our supporters to take part in our campaign action, lobbying their MP and filling in the Treasury's online survey. The Chancellor needs to hear that the measures announced today are only part of the solution for child poverty, and that families with disabled children need and expect much more from the CSR.'
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For media enquiries please contact Kate Williams on: 020 7843 6448 or at [email protected]
Every Disabled Child Matters is a campaign by four organisations working with disabled children and their families: Contact a Family, Council for Disabled Children, Mencap and the Special Educational Consortium. It is a three-year campaign funded by a grant from the True Colours Trust, a Sainsbury’s family trust. See http://www.edcm.org.uk