A RECORD number of children were living in poverty in Barnsley last year, the latest figures show.

Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show 13,901 children under 16 in Barnsley were living in relative poverty in the year to March – up from 13,418 the year before and the highest since comparable records began in 2013/14.

It meant 31 per cent of children in the area were in households whose income was below 60 per cent of the average income, and also claimed child benefit with at least one other household benefit.

Across the UK, 2.7 million children were living in relative poverty, including 313,918 children in Yorkshire and The Humber.

This national number increases to over 4.4 million children when looking at income after housing costs and including kids aged between 16 and 19 in full-time education – the highest number since national records started in 2002/03.

Charity Save the Children has warned that without immediate action, this could be the ‘first Labour government that oversees a significant rise in child poverty – a record no-one wants’ – and described the latest data as ‘a source of national shame’.

The End Child Poverty coalition added the data should be seen as a ‘stark warning’ to government, adding record-high numbers of children in poverty ‘isn’t the change people voted for’.

The government’s own impact assessment, published on Wednesday, estimated welfare reforms planned by Chancellor Rachel Reeves could see 250,000 more people, including 50,000 children, fall into poverty by 2029/30.

Charities urged a U-turn on the plans, saying the announced cuts to disability and incapacity benefits will ‘push more disabled people into poverty and worsen people’s health’.

Oxfam’s domestic poverty lead, Dr Silvia Galandini, said: “These latest poverty figures are as damning as they are heartbreaking.

“This is before recent brutal cuts, where the Chancellor chose to remove vital security and safety from those who need it the most instead of taxing the super-rich.

“It is unconscionable that the government is cutting social security while wilfully ignoring the huge potential revenue of a tiny tax on the super-rich, one that is overwhelmingly backed by the British public.”