Former Labour minister Clare Short today attacked the government’s child poverty strategy after new figures revealed that half of all children are living in or close to poverty in many areas of the UK.

Research by the Campaign to End Child Poverty(ECPC) found more than a quarter of all the UK’s constituencies have at least half of all children in families relying or benefits or working tax credit.

Top of the league was Claire Short’s Short’s Birmingham Ladywood constituency 81% of its children in one of these families.

Claire Short said “These are disturbing figures, but they reflect the weakness of New Labour’s anti-poverty strategy.”  “This is a sad reflection of the growing inequality in the UK.”

The ECPC, an umbrella group which includes Barnardo’s, Save the Children and the TUC urged the government to keep its promise to eradicate child poverty by 2020.

Government poverty figures class families surviving on 60% of median income as living in poverty.

The ECPC useds those figures, but also included figures for those on 70% of median national income.

Their research shows child poverty is even more concentrated within some of the UK’s 646 constituencies.

 Martin Narey, the campaign chairman said “Pockets of our country are in turmoil.  These figures show us that there are millions more children than originally thought being failed by the system.”

The campaign’s director, Hilary Fisher, said: “We are pushing the government harder than ever to do more to end child poverty in our country – one that is ironically the fifth richest country in the world.  The government needs to focus on areas where deprivation is worst.”

Fisher said the government should take heed of research for theJoseph Rowntree Foundation showing the need for £2.8bn investment in benefits and tax credits to lift 1 million children out of poverty.

Without that, she added, Labour has no hope of hitting its interim target for halving child poverty by 2010.

Read the complete article from today’s Guardian at http://tiny.cc/72mYV