Gordon Brown accused over rising child poverty

Tens of thousands more children in Britain are living below the poverty line, a report found on Monday, as MPs questioned Gordon Brown's commitment to eradicating child poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said one in three children live in poverty and that little progress has been made in the past three years. It recommended increasing public sector pay. Meanwhile the cross-party Treasury Commons Select Committee found that ministers had "drawn back from a wholehearted commitment" to halve child poverty by 2010. In 1999, former Prime Minister Tony Blair promised to halve the number of poor children in a decade before completely eradicating the problem in 20 years. Brown has taken up the cause, appointing Schools Secretary Ed Balls to head a unit designed to produce ideas to tackle child poverty... AsiaOne