Background

The Equality Trust and Child Poverty Action Group work together as Co-Secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty. This means that we help to organise parliamentary sessions, undertake research, produce policy reports and manage the membership and operations of the group. 

While APPGs are not a formal part of the parliamentary process, they provide a significant opportunity to influence policy debates and to build cross-party support and coordinated action. They also offer an opportunity to bring individuals with lived experience to engage directly with parliamentarians.

Impact

• In 2018, the APPG undertook an inquiry into the ‘Poverty Premium’ – the phenomenon that people living in poverty pay more for essential goods and services.
• Over the course of 2022, the APPG looked into in-work poverty, holding two evidence sessions and putting out a call for evidence. The report found that in-work poverty had been rising steadily due to structural factors, such as the housing shortage and increasing casualisation, with a deeply unequal impact. Recommendations included paying the real living wage, new regulations to make workers more secure, banning fire and rehire, and reform carer and parental leave. Many of these recommendations were aimed at the then in-progress Employment Bill, which was unfortunately shelved in 2022.
• At the end of the 2022 the APPG launched new inquiries into the inadequacy of social security. After inviting evidence from experts in the sector, the report found that the system was failing to ensure a basic standard of living and more focused on penalising recipients than providing for them. Notably, the report found that the needs of recipients had never actually been looked at by the government at all. The report called for the system to be guarantee essentials, be annually uprated, and end sanctions.
• In mid 2023, the APPG embarked on a new joint inquiry with the APPG on Migration into the impact of migration and refugee policy on poverty. The inquiry is still in progress, with calls for evidence focusing on those with lived experience of using the migration system and experts in the sector. Find out more about our work on this here.