A report from the Child Poverty Action Group has highlighted the scale of child poverty in Wales, estimating that it costs £2,200 million a year across the lifespan. Campaigners argue that child poverty remains stubbornly high and that current policy responses, while important, are not yet sufficient to drive the transformational change required. CPAG has also criticised the lack of measurable targets and concrete delivery mechanisms in existing approaches to tackling child poverty in Wales.
Three pillars for a new strategy
For too long, debates about child poverty have been framed as a choice between raising incomes and accepting the status quo. That is the wrong conversation. If Wales is serious about reducing child poverty, it needs a broader, more ambitious strategy built on three pillars: secure incomes, flexible employment, and affordable access to food through community-based enterprise.
Most importantly, anti-poverty spending should not be treated as a cost but as an investment. A pound spent preventing child poverty today can generate multiple pounds in future savings by reducing demand for health services, social care, social security systems and crisis interventions. Child poverty is not simply a social problem. It is an economic problem that imposes long-term costs on governments, communities and families alike.
Income security and the rise of in-work poverty
The first pillar of any anti-child-poverty strategy must remain income security. Children are poor because their families lack sufficient resources to meet their needs. This means ensuring that wages are adequate, benefits provide genuine security, and financial support reaches those who need it most.
There is now overwhelming evidence that financial insecurity harms children's educational attainment, physical health, mental wellbeing and future life chances. When families struggle to afford food, heating, clothing, transport and school-related costs, the consequences extend far beyond the household budget. The Welsh Government has already prioritised measures to maximise family incomes and reduce costs for low-income households. These objectives are important and should continue.
Yet income alone will not solve the problem. A common assumption is that employment automatically protects families from poverty. Increasingly, this is not true. Across the UK, significant numbers of children living in poverty have parents who are already in work. In-work poverty has become one of the defining features of modern Britain. Evidence presented by child poverty researchers highlights how insecure work, low pay and childcare challenges continue to undermine family wellbeing.
Flexible employment as an anti-poverty measure
The second pillar should be the promotion of genuinely flexible employment practices. Many parents, particularly single parents, face an impossible balancing act. They need paid work to support their families, but rigid employment structures often make it difficult to sustain.
A parent may be able to work only during school hours. Another may need flexibility to attend medical appointments or school meetings, or to respond to unexpected childcare challenges. Others may be caring for children and older relatives at the same time. Traditional nine-to-five working arrangements often fail to reflect these realities.
Flexible working should therefore be viewed not as a workplace perk but as an anti-poverty measure. Employers across Wales should be encouraged and supported to expand access to flexible hours, compressed working weeks, hybrid working arrangements where possible, predictable scheduling, and family-friendly employment practices. Such measures could have a particularly significant impact on single-parent households, who remain among the most vulnerable groups to poverty.
If parents can remain in employment because their work accommodates family responsibilities, household incomes become more secure, children's wellbeing improves, and dependence on emergency support is reduced. This is an area where economic and social policy can work hand in hand.
Affordable food through community enterprise
However, even income security and flexible employment do not address another reality for many Welsh families: the rising cost of food. Food poverty has become one of the most visible aspects of contemporary poverty. While food banks provide an important emergency response, they were never intended to be a permanent feature of the welfare landscape.
The debate therefore needs to move beyond crisis response. Wales should develop a third pillar of anti-child-poverty policy centred on developing subsidised food cooperatives and not-for-profit food enterprises. Imagine a network of community-owned or -managed food outlets operating on high streets across Wales. The successes of the Community Food Strategy need to be rolled out across every high street in Wales.
These organisations would not exist to maximise profits. Their purpose would be to provide affordable, nutritious food, including fresh fruit, vegetables, and other essentials, at prices lower than those typically charged by commercial retailers. Government support could help with premises, start-up costs and operating expenses. In return, the enterprises would commit to delivering affordable food, supporting local producers where possible and reinvesting surpluses into local communities.
Such an approach could achieve multiple policy objectives simultaneously. First, it would improve access to affordable food. Second, it would directly contribute to reducing food insecurity among families with children. Third, it would help to revive struggling high streets by bringing people back into town centres. Fourth, it would strengthen local economies by keeping spending within local communities. Finally, it would create opportunities for training, volunteering and employment.
Too often, policy is designed around a single objective. The most effective interventions deliver multiple benefits simultaneously. Community food cooperatives offer exactly that opportunity.
Moving beyond the politics of scarcity
One of the frustrations in the child poverty debate is its tendency to focus overwhelmingly on constraints. We frequently hear that governments cannot afford it, that budgets do not allow it, and that new initiatives are unrealistic. This language dominates policy briefings and public discourse.
Yet history shows that transformational social policies rarely arise from a politics of scarcity. They arise from a politics of investment. Building affordable housing requires investment. Expanding childcare requires investment. Improving public health requires investment. Reducing child poverty is no different.
The real question is not what interventions cost today, but what failing to act will cost tomorrow. Children growing up in poverty are more likely to experience poorer health, lower educational achievement, fewer employment opportunities and greater reliance on public services over the course of their lives. These outcomes impose high long-term costs on society.
Preventing poverty is invariably cheaper than dealing with its consequences. That is why anti-poverty strategies should be assessed using an investment framework. Policymakers should ask what social and economic return each pound spent generates. If an intervention reduces future NHS pressures, improves educational outcomes, strengthens labour market participation, and reduces demand for social security support, it should be regarded as a high-return public investment.
A new vision for Wales
Wales needs an anti-child-poverty agenda commensurate with the scale of the challenge. That means maintaining a strong commitment to income security. It means recognising flexible employment as an essential anti-poverty tool, particularly for single parents. And it means embracing innovative approaches, such as subsidised food cooperatives on our high streets, that support families, communities and local economies.
Most of all, it means changing how we think about poverty policy. Reducing child poverty should not be seen as a burden on public finances. It is one of the smartest investments a government can make. The real cost lies not in action, but in allowing another generation of Welsh children to grow up without the opportunities they deserve.
