Iain Duncan Smith's call over addiction link to poverty

Eradicating child poverty must mean tackling issues like the addiction of parents to drugs or alcohol as well low family incomes, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith will say today.

During a speech at the Kids Company charity in London, Mr Duncan Smith will argue that there has been too much focus on moving families over an "arbitrary poverty line" without a proper understanding of the real problems they are facing.

He will also use the speech to call for a new "multidimensional measure" of child poverty to operate alongside the existing income-based measure, to better reflect the reality of children's lives.