Report: Further investment essential

Chancellor Alistair Darling must invest further in efforts to tackle child poverty when he presents his first Budget to parliament next week, MPs say.

The Commons' work and pensions committee warns the government will only have removed 600,000 of the 1.6 million children they had pledged to remove from poverty by 2010.

In addition to highlighting concerns about specific groups of children facing much greater risk of child poverty, the report warns efforts must be made to ensure parents in work are significantly better off than those on benefits.

"It is a deception to tell people that they are better off in work if this is not the case and some jobs will be unsustainable when this time-limited credit expires," committee chairman Terry Rooney warns.

"As we get closer to 2020 and more people move into work, there will remain a core of parents who will be the hardest to help.

"If the government is committed to the eradication of child poverty by 2020, we believe it needs a long-term strategy on benefit income for those who are unable to work."