Caritas Salford is calling for urgent action following new figures that show almost 250,000 children in Salford diocese living in poverty. The charity, which is launching its summer appeal by sharing the shocking extent of child poverty in each of the local authority areas covered by the geography of the diocese, is urging Government to take immediate action.
The new figures from Loughborough University reveal that 228,855 children are living in poverty across the diocese. Patrick O’Dowd, director of Caritas Salford, said: “As we go through the most severe period of price rises for 40 years, we know that more families than ever will need help, especially across these school holiday weeks and the planned energy price hike in the autumn.” He described the figures as “shocking”.
Caritas Salford is calling on the government to support people's immediate spending needs by increasing benefits now as opposed to April 2023, to bring them in line with inflation, and to reintroduce the £20 uplift for Universal Credit. Caritas also wants a policy to help mitigate the impact of inflationary shocks in the future with a one-off payment to households in dwellings below energy performance certificate band C, that is households that have not met energy efficiency targets and hence have higher heating bills.
Caritas Salford operates a range of services across Greater Manchester and Lancashire, including professional services for children. “Demand for our services is higher than ever, and it's heartbreaking and completely unacceptable that families are having to choose between paying bills or feeding their children,” said Mr O’Dowd. “Action must be taken now.”
Since its launch in 2020, the Caritas Bishop’s Fund has been awarding small one-off emergency grants to families and individuals in crisis. Access to these grants is promoted via Caritas frontline workers and partnership organisations, as well as the diocesan network of schools and parishes. Support from the fund has supplied supermarket shopping vouchers, replaced white goods and children's beds and helped people to cope with sudden shocks such as a terminal illness diagnosis, job loss or bereavement.
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