Nursery World - More children 'are escaping poverty'

As many as 200,000 children in the UK have been lifted out of relative income poverty in the past year, the Government claimed last week. Work and pensions secretary Andrew Smith said the number of children in absolute poverty had fallen more rapidly, with 2.1 million fewer 'growing up with their opportunities undermined by acute financial hardship'.

Work and pensions secretary Andrew Smith said the number of children in absolute poverty had fallen more rapidly, with 2.1 million fewer 'growing up with their opportunities undermined by acute financial hardship'.

Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions' Households Below Average Incomes survey showed that 700,000 children have escaped income poverty since Labour came to power in 1997.

However, research for the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that only the Government's tax and benefit policy 'has kept the lid on what would otherwise have been a much bigger growth in inequality'. The IFSpointed to an 'unusual combination' since the mid-1990s of 'slightly rising income inequality and yet falling relative poverty'.

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