Cutting Rochdale’s child poverty is the Christmas carol we need

The Christmas trees are up outside Rochdale Town Hall, Santa’s Grotto is in Riverside, and kids of all ages are looking forward to the big day. But at this time of year, with its special duty to think of others less fortunate than ourselves, it’s worth remembering Rochdale’s proud history as a place where the people decided to do something about poverty.

A few days before Christmas, 182 years ago, hard-working weavers and their families gathered in the Weavers’ Arms in Cheetham Street, near Toad Lane. They had answered a circular that set out the idea of creating a co-operative that would buy and sell goods at affordable prices, with any profits shared among all those involved.

On almost the same day in December 1843, Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ was published for the first time, highlighting the plight of many impoverished but hard-working families of the Victorian era. Dickens had taken just six weeks to write his novel, and hatched the idea for its plot on a train back to London after visiting a Manchester workhouse with truly appalling conditions.

A year after their first meeting, the 28 Rochdale Pioneers opened the shutters on their humble shop in Toad Lane on December 21, 1844, just as Christmas loomed. It was 8pm, it was freezing cold and the longest night of the year.

From those humble beginnings rose a global movement for social justice, for working class self-help and honest graft. Just as Dickens’ fame spread across many countries, so too did our own Co-Op – both spurred on by a refusal to accept poverty as inevitable.

Sadly far too many families in Rochdale are still struggling with poverty, particularly child poverty, through no fault of their own. The ghost of Christmas past, youngsters stuck in damp, inadequate housing and working parents going without to feed their kids, is unfortunately the reality of Christmas present.

Many Rochdalians do a brilliant job to lend a helping hand. The Christmas Toy Appeal, which gives hundreds of kids a donated present to make sure they don’t miss out on the magic Christmas, is a reminder that many children are in need locally.

But combatting poverty isn’t just about Christmas time, it’s a year-round effort. The last Labour government dramatically cut child poverty, thanks to policies like Sure Start and working tax credits.

I’m delighted to say that this government will do even more, with the removal of the two-child cap set to lift around 450,000 children out of poverty – the biggest single reduction of any Parliament in history.

While no one will defend the tiny minority who fiddle the welfare system, the fact is that most people are on Universal Credit through redundancy, bereavement, divorce, illness or lack of childcare. And 75% of children in poverty are in households that work, but with low pay.

The new Child Poverty Strategy is expected to help a further 100,000 children, through things like improving incentives to work through new childcare costs help and making baby formula more affordable by upto £500 a year.

Of course, the best answer to poverty is better paid, secure work in a thriving economy, alongside a social security safety net that is there for cases of genuine need.

In Rochdale, more than 5,000 children will be lifted out of poverty by the new strategy. That’s 5,000 future nurses, plumbers, engineers, carers, teachers, entrepreneurs, soldiers all given the best start in life they need to achieve their dreams and fulfil their potential.

That’s an investment in their future, our town’s future and our country’s future.