In 1999, Tony Blair committed the Government to abolishing child poverty by 2020. In 2006, the Conservative opposition endorsed this aim, and in 2009 the Government introduced a Child Poverty Bill, which requires all future governments to meet four child poverty targets. This report claims that the way the Government is defining and measuring poverty is badly flawed, and that the new Bill has more to do with redistributing incomes and increasing welfare payments than with tackling the underlying causes of child poverty. It ultimately recommends that the current child poverty targets should be replaced and the Child Poverty Bill withdrawn.
