Children in Britain dragged into the trap of poverty by their own government:

In the report, which was conducted for the Northern Ireland executive but considered a pan-UK position, the institute says warns the coalition that “tax and benefit reforms introduced since April 2010 can account for almost all of the increases in child poverty projected over the next few years”.


“One in four children in Britain – 3.4 million – will be in relative poverty by 2020, the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned yesterday. 

Liam Byrne, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “The IFS verdict is clear – by both internationally recognised measures, this government is set to plunge over a million children into poverty by the end of this decade, undoing all the good work of the last Labour government.”

At the end of the decade, rates of absolute child poverty will be 27.2%, compared with a target of 5%. In relative terms, it will be about 24% in 2020, compared with the goal of 10% written in law.

Charities warned that a generation was being failed. Alison Garnham, of Child Poverty Action Group, said: “We always put our children’s needs first in family life, and we should do as a nation, too. But today’s dire projections reveal we are in danger of failing the next generation. 

The government has child poverty targets and a child poverty strategy because it knows poverty destroys life chances and generates huge costs to our economy.”