Child poverty in Wales still high despite jobless fall, MP says

A third of children in Wales live in poverty despite a fall in unemployment, a Labour MP has said.

Delyn MP David Hanson asked what the UK government was doing to tackle the issue highlighted in official figures.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said Wales had "deep-rooted problems" with communities "physically distant" from developments elsewhere.

He said transport links would be improved to help people take up job opportunities where they were created.

Only London saw higher rates of child poverty than Wales in statistics for 2013-2014 released on Thursday.

A child is defined as being in poverty when living in a household with an income below 60% of the UK average of £453 a week.

Under this measure, 2.3 million children across the UK - almost one in six - live in poverty, a figure unchanged in three years.

'Good progress'

Mr Duncan Smith told MPs that the number of people in relative poverty was at its lowest level since the mid-1980s.

He said the government had made "good progress" but wasn't complacent.

"Our reforms have tackled the root causes of poverty - employment is up over two million since 2010," he said.

Only London has higher rates of child poverty than Wales, official figures show

Plaid Cymru's spokesperson on children, Jocelyn Davies, accused the Welsh Labour government of failing to do more to tackle the problem.

"Every part of the UK has had to deal with the consequences of welfare reform, yet in Wales the figures on child poverty remain staggeringly high," she said.

Peter Black, for the Welsh Liberal Democrats, said it was a "damning verdict" on Welsh Labour's record, but claimed the Conservative UK government would "make this matter worse" with "a plan to decimate our welfare system" with £12bn worth of benefit cuts.