Child poverty affects us all

There is no poverty in the UK I hear you cry. Really? Let's start by looking at what we mean by poverty and the statistics. There is currently no formal UK-wide measure of poverty, but experts such as the Social Metrics Commission set the threshold as 55 per cent of the median total available resources - creating a poverty line relative to what the median family has available to spend.

The UK is the 5th richest economy in the world yet astonishingly 14.5 million people are living in poverty. Of these, 4.5 million are children. A record 2.9 million children from working families in the UK are living in poverty after housing costs have been paid. Families with two parents working full time, at the national minimum wage, are still 11 per cent short of the income needed to raise a child. In total, 70 per cent of all poor children were living in working families with at least one parent in work.