Dear constituent,

Thank you for contacting me about support for children during and beyond the pandemic.

We need to invest properly in children’s services so that the next generation are not scarred by often traumatic experiences of the pandemic. I believe early intervention is vital to ensure children get the support they need.

I am aware the chair of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, commissioned by the Government, has written to the Government in advance of the Spending Review calling for urgent investment in effective family help, as well as support for children in care.

A wide range of evidence has shown that young people’s wellbeing and mental health has been adversely affected by the pandemic. I support calls for a £15 billion children’s recovery plan that includes quality mental health support in every school: to give every child the support they need to transition back to school and manage personal challenges, with access to qualified in-school counselling staff alongside boosting wellbeing through extra activities.

I know that free school meal eligibility was recently temporarily extended to include some groups of children who have no recourse to public funds. However, it is vital we ensure no child goes hungry and I understand 300,000 more pupils became eligible for free school meals between January 2020 and 2021 than the previous year.

The National Food Strategy published earlier this year called for free school meals for children in households in receipt of UC. Ministers need to consider this report carefully and ensure that all children can get the food they need.

Even before the £20-a-week cut to Universal Credit (UC) in October, 4.3 million children were growing up in poverty. However, the cut to UC now has come at the worst possible time, just as prices are rising. I think UC should have been kept at the level it was raised to during the pandemic until it can be replaced with a new social security system that offers security to families in hard times.

We need reform of our social security system to give everyone the help that they need. However, we also need action to target structural inequalities, including differential rates of poverty, unemployment, low pay, job insecurity and so much more.

Thank you once again for contacting me about this issue.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Dowd MP