PM seeks to revive child poverty plans

from The Financial Times

By George Parker, Jimmy Burns and Nicholas Timmins

The prime minister is considering ways of using next week's Budget to instill his child poverty strategy with fresh momentum amid warnings that further investment is needed if the government is to meet its targets.

Gordon Brown conceded the seriousness of child poverty in Britain in his Labour party conference speech in Birmingham on Saturday. According to government insiders, the speech was a reflection of what they accept are genuine difficulties in meeting the target to halve child poverty by 2010.

The Treasury said that tackling child poverty was a "very important issue" for the government. "It is certainly being considered in the run-up to the Budget."

While the Treasury was yesterday keeping its options close to its chest, Labour MPs are putting pressure on Alistair Darling, chancellor, to use his first Budget on March 12 to help low income families and accelerate work on meeting the 2010 target. They see it as a chance to draw clearer dividing lines with the Conservatives by taking a more aggressive stance on tackling poverty.

A report published today by the Labour-dominated Commons works and pensions committee says there are 2.8m children living in poverty, and the number is increasing. It estimates that on current projections the government will miss its 2010 target by close to 1m children, or nearly 1.5m if measured after housing costs are taken into account.

The committee backs the government's focus on getting parents into sustainable employment, but emphasises that parents also need to be financially better off in work than on benefits. "While work is the main route out of poverty, having a parent in work is not always a guarantee that the family have been lifted above the poverty threshold," said Labour MP Terry Rooney, the committee's chairman.

The Treasury select committee warned at the turn of the year it feared the government "may have drawn back from a wholehearted commitment" to meeting the 2010 target.

Child poverty was due to have been cut by a quarter by 2005 as a first step to the 2010 goal. But while the numbers were down by 600,000, that was still more than 300,000 short of the interim target.