Having attended a Lib Dem conference on poverty last month, I am not surprised that the government is failing to acheive the targets set for reducing child poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that government targets will simply never be hit unless there is serious and immediate action.

The current recession is likely to still further exacerbate this problem and it is now imperative that the goverment listens to the independent foundation and the views of other parties to takle this problem immediately.

The current tax credit system allows a couple earning over 70k a year to claim child benefits. We should be targetting the money we have to those who need it most – its the only way to solve this problem.

If Gordon Brown doesn’t sort this out soon it will be a damning indictment on over a decade of Labour government – a generation of children brought up under Labour in poverty. I can’t see the Conservatives making a serious attempt to address this problem, so again it is left to the Lib Dems to put the pressure on.