Ministers have no clear plan to tackle child poverty, say cross-party MPs

Ministers have no clear plans to tackle rising child poverty, while a lack of focus and leadership has hindered efforts to reduce the numbers of youngpeople living in hardship, a cross-party group of MPs has said. The House of Commons work and pensions select committee said ministers needed to draw up a fresh cross-departmental anti-poverty strategy driven from No 10 and underpinned by fresh and robust evidence of the scale of the problem. “At the moment, the government has no strategy and no measurable objectives against which it can be held to account,” said the committee chair Stephen Timms. “How can it hope to reduce child poverty when it doesn’t have a plan?” Read more.