Families on benefits are being left high and dry. A couple with two children who lose their jobs is having to survive on £115 a week below the poverty line. The latest jobless figures show that the number of children in out of work households has jumped back up to 2 million. One in five of our children has no parent in work.

Evidence on the impact of child poverty shows that these children will be scarred for life by the experience of poverty unless the Government acts now. Children growing up in poverty are more likely to fail at school, to become unemployed as adults and to get in trouble with the law. This will be costly not only to themselves but also to the rest of society, costing the economy and the Treasury an estimated £25 billion a year.