MIKE Amesbury has blasted the government over its record on child poverty, after it was revealed almost a fifth of children in Frodsham and one in 10 children in Helsby are living in poverty.

New data released from End Child Poverty shows 23% of children – 4,490 in total – are living in poverty in Weaver Vale.

Specific ward figures revealed there were 315 children in poverty in Frodsham (17.69%) and 97 in Helsby (10.46%).

The wider figures also show that some of the most deprived areas of the UK have seen the biggest increases in child poverty since the coalition's local child poverty figures for December 2015.

There are increases of 10 percentage points in some areas.

Mr Amesbury, Labour MP for Weaver Vale, said: “Places like Cheshire as a whole and Frodsham and Helsby in particular probably aren’t seen as somewhere you might expect to find child poverty in such numbers, but peel back the surface of any town, village or city and you’ll find that child poverty is a growing problem, much of it a direct result of the government’s failed austerity agenda.

“I’m calling on the government to take these findings seriously and turn away from this destructive agenda which is harming the lives of so many families, and especially children and young people.”

The End Child Poverty coalition was set up in 2003 to leverage the work of a wide range of groups all of whom shared the objective of eradicating child poverty by 2020.