Blackpool’s child poverty battle is getting worse, not better
The two-child benefit cap is directly making it harder for families in Blackpool to escape poverty
Hello and welcome to The Blackpool Lead.
The Lead North’s titles have joined our national edition of The Lead in campaigning to end child poverty. As part of this, we will be committing to covering the impact of child poverty in our towns - including Blackpool - and that starts with today’s edition.
We will soon be launching a petition aimed at Rachel Reeves which will call on her to prioritise this issue which has become so embedded in British life over the last 15 years that it has almost become an accepted status quo.
But that’s a failure of any government who presides over it, as we wrote recently.
Child poverty in Blackpool is no secret. Even when times were better than they are in 2025, it was an issue. Labour’s Child Poverty Strategy will be a serious political test to see how they can bring about positive change in our town - and towns like it.
Blackpool briefing
🎳 Blackpool looks set for a fun-packed multi-leisure space if proposals involving operators Tenpin Ltd turn out to be similar to their other amenities. Plans are in motion for the former Odeon cinema off Rigby Road to become a 51,900 sq ft home for the bowling company. Tenpin Ltd has been named as the operator by applicants AIM Land Ltd, which already had planning permission for the building to be used for leisure activities such as bowling, trampolining, crazy golf, arcade games, climbing walls or indoor sports such as padel tennis or five-a-side football.
🎨 Talented artists with learning difficulties and complex needs are displaying their creative works of art in a new exhibition called CHROMA at The Gallery, Blackpool and The Fylde College University Centre. The CHROMA exhibition which runs until 24 October showcases work by 14 Blackpool based artists from the pARTnership project, each exploring colour through their own distinctive styles and perspectives.
🐚 Blackpool South MP Chris Webb has joined other Labour MPs - 66 in total - in calling for a national plan for coastal towns. They want better public transport, better post-16 education and secure jobs for people who don’t go to university. There are health inequalities - and no shortage of other challenges - for coastal towns and a big part of that is the topic of today’s newsletter.
Know something we should be covering or featuring in Blackpool? All story tip-offs are welcome to luke@thelead.uk
Blackpool’s child poverty statistics show how crucial lifting two-child benefit cap is
By Michael Holmes
A growing number of children in Blackpool are living in poverty, figures have revealed ahead of next month’s Budget.
Some 9,421 youngsters were classed as living in absolute poverty in 2023/24, up from 6,907 in 2018/19, figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show.
Meanwhile, 42% of schoolchildren in the resort were eligible for free school meals in the 2024/25 school year because their families got certain qualifying benefits, according to data from the Department for Education.
And there are 59 families with children living in temporary housing, the local authority said.
“Partner agencies generally report that demand for their services has increased over the past five years and from an initially quite high level,” a council spokesperson said when asked about the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on demand for local support services.
“It is uncertain whether this is because of increased awareness and better joint working and referral systems or whether this is directly related to higher levels of poverty and deprivation.”
The Blackpool Lead is urging the Labour Government to axe the two-child benefit cap which, it is claimed, is keeping families below the breadline.
Both of the town’s two MPs, Lorraine Beavers and Chris Webb, have also called for the benefit cap to be at least partially lifted, with the latter saying it is right morally but also financially.
A child is considered to be growing up in poverty if they live in a household whose income is 60% below the contemporary median income.
For a family of one adult and one child, that figure after housing costs is £263 a week, for one adult and two children it is £405 a week, for two adults and one child it is £405 a week and for two adults and two children it is £547 a week.
End Child Poverty says bigger families are more likely to be poor - and not just because their costs are higher.
It says: “The two-child limit to benefit payments restricts eligibility for means-tested benefits to the first two children in a family, for children born after April 2017.
“It is widely acknowledged that many households are living below the poverty line as a direct consequence of the policy.”
There has been speculation that the two-child benefit cap - brought in by the Tories - will be lifted at the Autumn Budget on November 26.
It comes after Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said there is a “real urgency” to do so, with campaigners saying it drags more than 100 children across the UK into poverty every day.
The limit restricts child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in most households.
Phillipson said earlier this month (OCT): “There’s a real urgency about this because every year that passes as children are born - as they move into that system - the numbers go up, child poverty rates increase.”
She told BBC Radio 4’s Political Thinking: “This was a Tory policy that’s had a devastating impact on children and we’ll sort it.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has not denied reports she plans to lift the cap.
Some 34.6% of children in the parliamentary constituency area of Blackpool North and Cleveleys were living in relative poverty in 2023/24, a report in June said.
In Blackpool South, that figure was 39.4%.
That equates to about 15,200 children, according to the report, published by the End Child Poverty Coalition in collaboration with the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University.
While the town’s two constituencies report rates worse than the national average of 31%, they are better than the North West’s 10 worst areas.
(The Blackpool North and Cleveleys constituency map boundary was changed in 2024, with the constituency now covering Blackpool North and Fleetwood.)
Blackpool North and Fleetwood MP Lorraine Beavers and Blackpool South MP Chris Webb, both of Labour, were asked by The Blackpool Lead if they would publicly call on Reeves to lift the two-child benefit cap.
They were also asked what difference it would make both nationally and for families in their constituencies.
And they were asked how lifting the cap could be funded.
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