Newcastle North MP, Catherine McKinnell, has criticised Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, following his response to her question on child poverty in the Commons this afternoon (31^st March).

Speaking during Fair Pay Fortnight (24^th March-4^th April), Catherine raised the issue of child poverty in working families and asked the Secretary of State if the UK is likely to meet the 2020 child poverty target, set by the previous Labour Government.

Commenting afterwards, Catherine said:

‘As ever, the Secretary of State says that he is focussed on reducing the number of children in workless households in order to tackle child poverty. Of course, getting parents into work should be the key step towards increasing their standard of living, and ultimately reducing the number of children living in poverty.

‘But, for far too many families at the moment, being in work just isn’t enough to meet the basic cost of living.  Indeed, the Government’s own Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission states that child poverty is now overwhelmingly a problem for working families, and the proportion of children in poverty living in a working household has gone up to 66% under the Coalition.

‘Since 2010, for example, the number of children in homes where parents are working part-time because they just can’t get full-time hours has increased by a staggering 45% – to 646,000. Little wonder, that the Institute for Fiscal Studies forecasts that there will be one million more children living in poverty in 2020 than there were in 2010.

‘Too many families are being trapped in poverty by the increasing prevalence of low paid, insecure work, but this Government remains totally complacent to this issue and the very real impact it is having on children across the country.’