Hutton Update On Child Poverty Due

{mosimage}Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton is expected to hail inroads into child poverty on Wednesday, but warn there is plenty left to do. A report from the Department for Work and Pensions will show there were 700,000 fewer children living in poverty in 2004/5 compared to 1997. But Mr Hutton will say that the Government must do more, with particular attention to families who remain in poverty despite one parent going to work. The annual Opportunities For All publication will say that at least one adult works in almost half of the households in which children are in poverty. This is thought to be down to low pay or the low number of hours worked. The Government nevertheless believes that getting 70% of lone parents into work by 2010 would lift a further 200,000 children out of poverty. The eighth Opportunities For All report, bringing together all the Government’s work on social exclusion and poverty, comes on the International Day Against Poverty. It will contain a special chapter on child poverty ahead of the Department for Work and Pensions’ child poverty strategy, to be published later this year.