Welfare Benefits Handbook 2025/26 Foreword
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Foreword
Welcome to the 2025/26 edition of the Welfare Benefits Handbook. As you may have noticed, tax credits have disappeared from the name of our flagship guide as they disappear from our social security system. The tax credit system, introduced in the first term of the New Labour government by Gordon Brown, played a significant role in reducing child poverty. By contrast, the last 15 years have seen numerous cuts and freezes to our social security system, so that now universal credit (UC) and child benefit are far too low, and child poverty is far too high.
Soon after the new UK government came in, it announced a Child Poverty Taskforce to draw up a new child poverty strategy. This will be published later in 2025, and the need could not be more urgent. This strategy is a huge opportunity to significantly reduce child poverty in the UK. It needs to be ambitious to match the scale of the challenge, and it needs to have targets to focus efforts.
Investment in our social security system m
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