The first priority is to design out bad luck at birth as far as possible, so that every child is born with the same life chances. Every child should have the same opportunities to realise their potential, regardless of the circumstances into which they are born. There are three ‘fair necessities’ for children: ending child poverty once and for all, providing high-quality universal education that starts in the early years, and ensuring that there is a sustainable environment in which children can grow and thrive. This agenda cuts across all ten of the issues above, but with a particular focus on five: housing, social security, work, education and the environment. It builds on a huge amount of research and policy work over many years, including recent reports from the Early Years Commission and the Social Mobility Commission.
Firstly, we must end child poverty, which remains at unacceptably high levels in the UK. If we do not, other efforts to equalise opportunities, such as investing in education and skills, will simply be a sticking plaster. We need to take action in three areas in particular to eradicate child poverty:
Housing: Building more social housing and improving conditions for private renters, so as to reduce the high costs of housing and to stop poorer children having to move house and school regularly
Social security: Providing more generous financial support to parents and expectant parents, to ensure that all families (including those with more than two children) are lifted out of poverty
Work: Tackling insecure, exploitative and poorly paid work and providing more parental leave, so that all parents have the financial stability and time to focus on their children’s early development
Secondly, we must provide high-quality universal education, starting in the early years. Some children are almost a year behind their peers when they start school (and these gaps continue to widen as they grow older). Early years education and childcare needs to be available to every parent, whatever their income or employment status and wherever they live in the country; it needs to be affordable and to meet the educational and developmental needs of children while being sufficiently flexible for working parents. We also need to provide more targeted support and funding for disadvantaged students in full-time education, so that those who grew up in poverty have the best chance to fulfil their potential.
Thirdly, we must provide a sustainable environment. An urgent priority is to tackle the damage done by air pollution, especially to children living in deprived areas. We also need a fair and rapid transition to a zero-carbon economy to mitigate the worst impacts of the climate and biodiversity crises.
The alternative approach of providing targeted childhood-focused interventions (such as educational support to low-income families) to compensate for a failure to level the playing field will not be sufficient to create equal life chances at birth, just as compensatory efforts later in life are not enough.
We also need to address issues of intergenerational fairness, so that the life chances and living standards of today's young people and of future generations are at least similar to those of today's older generation, even if historical rates of improvement cannot be sustained for ever. We cannot do this without tackling the climate crisis alongside issues such as jobs and housing.
