Campaigners have warned that the government's child poverty target will still be missed despite a cash injection of over one billion pounds.
In his Budget speech Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, promised to spend £765m next year, and £950m the year after to cut the number of children living in poverty.
He said the cash will support initiatives that will raise 250,000 children out of poverty, on top of another 250,000 who will benefit from measures announced in the last year.
Charities welcomed the news, which comes at a time when the government has little spare money to invest, but said it still falls short of the £3.4m that is needed to meet the government's aim of halving child poverty by 2010.
Ross Hendry, head of public policy at children's charity NCH, said: "We were really pleased to see the commitment, but on the negative side we still know this isn't going to be enough."
Specific measures announced in the Budget include raising Child Benefit for the first child to £20 a week from April 2009, increasing the Child Tax Credit, and disregarding Child Benefit when calculating Housing and Council Tax Benefit.
A separate document, Ending child poverty: everybody's business, sets out the government's long term plans to meet its goal of eradicating child poverty by 2020.
This talks about a "contract out of poverty", where society works to tackle poverty as a whole, and those in poverty are expected to do their best to help themselves, for example by finding work.
He said the cash will support initiatives that will raise 250,000 children out of poverty, on top of another 250,000 who will benefit from measures announced in the last year.
Charities welcomed the news, which comes at a time when the government has little spare money to invest, but said it still falls short of the £3.4m that is needed to meet the government's aim of halving child poverty by 2010.
Ross Hendry, head of public policy at children's charity NCH, said: "We were really pleased to see the commitment, but on the negative side we still know this isn't going to be enough."
Specific measures announced in the Budget include raising Child Benefit for the first child to £20 a week from April 2009, increasing the Child Tax Credit, and disregarding Child Benefit when calculating Housing and Council Tax Benefit.
A separate document, Ending child poverty: everybody's business, sets out the government's long term plans to meet its goal of eradicating child poverty by 2020.
This talks about a "contract out of poverty", where society works to tackle poverty as a whole, and those in poverty are expected to do their best to help themselves, for example by finding work.
