Labour Government Failing On Poverty'

The government has not met its target of lifting 1m children out of poverty
The government has failed to meet its targets to reduce child poverty, new figures are expected to reveal.

Tony Blair has pledged to eradicate child poverty by 2020.

But it is believed the government has fallen short of achieving its first milestone - a 25% reduction in child poverty from 1999 levels.

Employment Minister Margaret Hodge acknowledged that the government had "missed the target a little bit" but denied that it was a "failure".

It is a goal, in which we can take a whole concerted series of action which will move us towards eradicating poverty

Campaigners say good progress has been made but they want further investment in benefits schemes to help lift more families above the breadline.

A family is considered to be officially poor if they are living on less than 60% of Britain's average household income, once housing costs are taken into account.


Ms Hodge told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the government had set the "right goal" but it was an "incredibly tough ambitious" target.

"It is a goal in which we can take a whole concerted series of action which will move us towards eradicating poverty," she said.

"I am bold and confident that we have a lot of the building blocks in place ... We are making the progress that we want to make."

We need to invest at least an extra £2bn a year in those if the government is to continue making good progress

The definition of poverty for a single person was having an income of less than £100 per week, said Peter Kenway from the New Policy Institute think tank.

A household of two adults with two children was living in poverty if they had a weekly income of less than £260.

According to its pledge, the government should have now lifted one million children out of poverty, but by last year it had only achieved just over half of that.

Under the government's welfare-to-work policies, more than 300,000 extra lone mothers have found employment.

But campaigners believe these strategies have left behind large families or those with disabled children.

Sir Jeremy Beecham, vice-chairman of the Local Government Association, said there had been a significant reduction in child poverty but there was "still much to be done".

He said enhancing the take-up of council tax benefit by the low paid would help reduce poverty numbers further.

"The current system is too complicated and fails to provide an adequate safety net for many of the poorest families in the country," he said.

"Ministers should embrace the opportunity to ensure that those most in need get the entitlements to help them out of poverty."

Ms Hodge said the government had inherited "the poorest record in Europe" when it came to power with one in three children growing up in poverty.

She said it had managed to "break the cycle of deprivation" and helped six million families and 10 million children.

Conservative work and pensions' spokesman Philip Hammond said employment for parents was the key to ending child poverty, and that people could not rely on the state to solve the problem.

"The state is not the only engine of social justice," he said. "We need to engage the private sector, the voluntary sector in a collaborative effort to tackle the scourge of child poverty."

Jim Bennett, a child poverty expert at left-wing think tank for the Institute for Public Policy Research, told BBC Five Live more resources were needed.

"We need further investment in the tax credit and child benefits and we need to invest at least an extra £2bn a year in those if the government is to continue making good progress."

Mr Bennett said other measures to help large families, families of disabled children and families in London were also needed, along with Child Support Agency reform, better access to affordable and quality childcare, and an increased supply of flexible jobs.

"Really we'd like to see the chancellor make a renewed commitment to... eradicating child poverty by 2020 and delivering those resources for the tax credits and child benefit increases that our analysis shows are needed," he added.