On Tuesday, Grahame attended the People
On Tuesday, Grahame attended the People's Picnic in Horden Welfare Park, organised by the East Durham Trust. The event offered food, physical activity and an art workshop with a local artist.

North East child poverty is now the highest of any region in the UK.

Research published in July and carried out by Loughborough University for the End Child Poverty coalition indicates that two in five babies, children and young people across the North East (38%) were living below the poverty line in 2020/21, after housing costs were taken into account – rising from 37% the year before.

The North East has also continued to experience by far the steepest increase in child poverty across the UK in recent years, moving from being just below the national average in 2014/15 to having the highest rate of any nation or region of the country by 2020/21. Overall child poverty rates in the North East have risen by almost half – from 26% to 38% – in the space of those six years; during a time when child poverty fell slightly, by two percentage points, across the country.

In 2020/21, the North East overtook London to have the highest rate of child poverty in the UK, at 38% – up from 37% the year before. This equates to just over 11 children in a classroom of 30.

The 2020/21 North East rise continues a longer-term trend, with the region experiencing by far the steepest increases in child poverty in the UK in recent years. Between 2014/15 and 2020/21 (the period covered by the DWP’s latest dataset), child poverty in the North East has risen by almost one half, from 26% (just below the UK average) to 38% (the highest rate of anywhere in the country).

Easington
Easington

The new research also confirms the North East Parliamentary seats with the highest levels of child poverty – with 40.6% of children in Easington now growing up poor.

The UK-wide rate in 2020/21 was 27%, representing a fall of around 400,000 children from the previous year, which has been attributed to the Covid-related £20 per week increase to Universal Credit that was removed in October 2021.

Further information can be found here.

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