Benefit and tax credit cuts will push an additional 200,000 children into poverty, the Government has confirmed.

Following Whitehall decisions to limit many welfare benefit increases by 1% a year below inflation over the next three years, work and pensions minister Esther McVey has said that the Government expects the number of children living in households earning less than 60% of the average household income to increase.

In an answer to a parliamentary question, Mcvey said the Government estimates: ‘the uprating measures in 2013/4, 2014/5 and 2015/16 will result in around an extra 200,000 children being deemed by this measure to be in relative income poverty compared to uprating benefits by Consumer Price Index (CPI)’.

By the end of the decade, it is expected this could increase the number of children in poverty by one million.