The charity's report said that nearly a third of UK children live in relative poverty and the rate has more than trebled in the past 20 years, peaking in the late 1990s. Its publication coincided with prime minister Tony Blair's launch last week of the Government's own annual report into child poverty and his pledge to do more to tackle it by 'redistributing wealth and opportunity to the many, not the few'.
Andrew Smith, work and pensions secretary, said 1.4 million fewer children were living on absolute low income than in 1997 and that the Government was committed to cutting the number in low income households by a quarter by 2004.
The report, The Well-being of Children in the UK, was carried out by researchers at York University, who made a comprehensive study of the physical, cognitive, behavioural and emotional well-being of children by examining issues ranging from poverty, health and education to crime and the environment. It said that while overall child poverty rates remained high, poverty is unevenly distributed. Wales has a higher rate than England and Scotland, but has 'sharp local concentrations', and the ward with the highest proportion of children living in poverty - 96 per cent - is Whitfield South in Dundee, Scotland. Northern Ireland has relatively high rates in all wards.
Calling on the Government to produce its own child well-being report, Save the Children policy and strategy manager for the UK and Europe Madeleine Tearse said, 'It is impossible to imagine how governments can effectively reach the children most in need of their support without detailed UK-wide and country-level monitoring of children's well-being.'
Martin Barnes, director of the Child Poverty Action Group, welcomed the prime minister's commitment but said the Govern-ment should stop playing 'pick and mix' with poverty statistics by trying to redefine how poverty is measured.
He added that the Government had failed to heed the advice of a Commons committee 18 months ago that had recommended urgent reform of the Social Fund, and it had failed to introduce a new child support scheme to help the poorest families.
The Save the Children report also highlighted trends in health. The researchers found that compared with other age groups, the highest rate of increase in the prevalence of chronic ill-health was among children, with obesity, diabetes and asthma all increasing while immunisation rates are down. Children in Scotland have the worst diets but the best educational attainment. Northern Ireland has the highest infant mortality rate, but the lowest teenage pregnancy rate.
