Birmingham Mail and BirminghamLive

Birmingham: A Child Poverty Emergency

2025

Jane Haynes, politics and people editor at the Birmingham Mail and BirminghamLive, launched an investigation into the scandal of child poverty in Birmingham – a crisis affecting more than 104,000 children across the city.

Her work, published through BirminghamLive and her paid-for newsletter Inside Birmingham, laid bare the devastating reality behind the statistics. In some of the city’s most deprived wards, three in every four children are growing up in poverty. In total, 46 per cent of Birmingham’s children now live below the poverty line – the highest rate since records began.

The campaign, titled Birmingham: A Child Poverty Emergency, is a call to action. It exposes the systemic failures that have allowed this crisis to deepen – from austerity-driven cuts and housing shortages to racial inequality and the collapse of youth services. It also highlights the resilience of families, schools, charities and communities fighting to protect children from the worst effects of deprivation.

The campaign is built around eight urgent demands:

1. End the two-child benefit cap
2. Provide free school meals to every child in poverty
3. Create a city “aid bank” for baby and child essentials
4. Protect children’s and youth services
5. Create a permanent, multi-year Household Support Fund and increase Discretionary Housing Grants
6. Set up child health and wellbeing hubs in the city’s most deprived neighbourhoods
7. Appoint a Birmingham Child Poverty Tsar
8. Provide free public transport for young people

The campaign is grounded in powerful storytelling – from children like Aya, Isaac and Forest, living in temporary accommodation or without beds of their own, to parents skipping meals to feed their children. It also draws on hard data, showing how poverty intersects with race, disability, housing, health and education.

Jane Haynes and the BirminghamLive team have not only exposed the scale of the crisis – they have also shown what needs to change. Their reporting has already prompted responses from local leaders, national charities and government ministers. With the Labour government pledging to tackle child poverty, the campaign is urging immediate action.