There has to be a focus on increasing incomes of those in low waged work, I know last year the figure was around 60% of families in poverty had at least one parent in work and clearly finding a solution to this is key. In my view increases child benefits, looking at the per child element of tax credit (as it is larger families who suffer from greater poverty) would be the most effective ways of helping those families.

It’s easy to through up our hands and talk about not hitting the target as if it never were possible, I think however, we need to outline the simple steps we need to take to try to get as close as possible to that target and build to 2020, we must challenge the coalition to prove themselves as progressive as they claim by asking them to take those steps. The demotion of Andrew Selous and sidelining of Steve Webb seriously undermines their claims to be progressive on welfare issues.