Seventy-five years after the British welfare state was born, our poorest people are about to be cast aside by the government’s universal credit cutGordon Brown is the WHO ambassador for global health financing, and was UK prime minister from 2007 to 20…
Ministers have no clear plan to tackle child poverty, say cross-party MPs
Committee calls for robust cross-departmental anti-poverty strategy to tackle growing problemMinisters have no clear plans to tackle rising child poverty, while a lack of focus and leadership has hindered efforts to reduce the numbers of youngpeople li…
The Guardian view on children’s mental health: ministers must pay up | Editorial
If Dame Rachel de Souza wants to help young people, she should go all out to boost funding for schools A new education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, is in post, and the first big piece of work by the recently appointed children’s commissioner for England, …
British ‘baby shortage’ could lead to economic decline, says thinktank
Social Market Foundation suggests measures including better childcare provision to increase birthrate Britain is facing a “baby shortage” that could lead to “long-term economic stagnation”, a thinktank has said.The Social Market Foundation (SMF) said t…
Folic acid to be added to non-wholemeal flour under new UK rules
Fortification of flour is a public health policy known to reduce neural tube defects in babiesFolic acid is to be added to the most commonly consumed flours in the UK to help prevent spinal conditions in babies, the government has announced.Doctors adv…
Beeban Kidron v Silicon Valley: one woman’s fight to protect children online
The film-maker and life peer has been warning of the digital dangers facing young people since 2012. Now, with her Children’s Code, people – and big tech companies – are starting to listenWhen she first began talking to her peers in the House of Lords…
Child poverty now costs Britain £38bn a year, says new independent report
Despite Conservative claims to have reduced childhood deprivation, the burden on taxpayers has soared over the past eight yearsThe cost of child poverty has soared over the past eight years under the Conservatives and has now reached £38bn a year, acco…
‘It takes too long to get support’: alarm over rising primary school exclusions
Parents and teachers call for action as figures show more young children in England being permanently excludedSam Bates* was excluded from school for the first time when he was five years old. After moving into year 1, he struggled to sit still, became…
Teenage girls, body image and Instagram’s ‘perfect storm’
The suffering of the photo-sharing app’s users came into focus this week with the leak of Facebook’s internal research‘I felt my body wasn’t good enough’Emily started using Instagram when she was in her mid-teens and found it helpful at first. She used…
Are the Wombles really the best children’s characters to tackle the climate crisis?
The stars of 1970s television have been announced as ambassadors for the British government’s #OneStepGreener campaign. But would the Octonauts and Go Jetters do better?From Wimbledon Common to Kelvingrove park – the Wombles, Britain’s much-loved envir…