Charity in call for seasonal grants

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Save the Children research suggests that twice-yearly seasonal grants - at the start of the school summer holidays and in the weeks before Christmas - would be more use to parents than a rise of a few pounds a week in existing benefits.

Seasonal grants worth £100 for each child in households with an income below £16,000 a year would cost Mr Brown around £1.4 billion, benefit 5.2 million children and lift almost half a million of them out of poverty, said the charity. Grant payments could be linked to Child Tax Credit, and may encourage take-up of the benefit.

This would get the Government back on track to meet its target of halving child poverty by 2010, which it will miss on current trends.

Mr Brown has said that "giving every child the best start in life" will be one of the key priorities of his administration when he becomes PM on June 27, but has yet to spell out new policies for meeting the goal of halving child poverty.

A YouGov survey of parents in low-income households for Save the Children found a clear majority (71%) would prefer twice-yearly grants to receiving the same money as a new weekly benefit.

While a few pounds a week could swiftly be eaten up by minor items like bus fares and food, a £100 grant would allow parents to pay for more expensive one-off items like winter coats or shoes for their children, to clear large heating bills or even to save some money.

Some 42% of those questioned said they would prefer a grant to a benefit hike because it would allow them to meet one-off financial burdens, while another 37% said it would help them save and give them more choice over how they spend their money.

Claire Walker, of Save the Children, said: "Listening to poor families has to be a part of solving the problem of child poverty. Save the Children, as part of End Child Poverty, has been calling for seasonal grants as an effective way of helping families on the lowest incomes at the most difficult times of year.

"The Government urgently needs to start coming up with positive solutions: otherwise they will miss their target by miles."