Cornwall has seen one of the biggest rises in child poverty in the south west over the last four years, new analysis reveals.

The End Child Poverty coalition, which commissioned the report showing almost a third of children across the UK live below the breadline, said families were already on a "cliff edge" before the coronavirus pandemic.

The research combined recent figures from the Department for Work and Pensions with local housing costs to produce new estimates for low-income families – those earning less than 60 per cent of the median income.

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The analysis shows 29.8 per cent of children aged 16 and under in Cornwall were living in families with low-incomes in 2018-19 – compared to 29.2 per cent in 2014-15.

This 0.6 per cent rise is one of the biggest in the South West.

In figures, the number of children in low-income families rose by almost 2,000 - from 26,873 in 2014-15, to 28,715 last year.

The report is based on DWP data from March, along with estimates of the effect housing costs had on poverty rates from Loughborough University's Centre for Research in Social Policy.

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The figures show little improvement in child poverty rates across the south west since 2014-15, with last year's highest rate being in Torridge (32.6 per cent).

Across the UK, the proportion of children in low-income families rose from 28 per cent to 30 per cent between 2014-15 and 2018-19.

A DWP spokesman said: "Making sure every child gets the best start in life is central to our efforts to level up opportunity across the country.

“We have already taken significant steps to do this by raising the living wage, ending the benefit freeze and injecting more than £9.3 billion into the welfare system to help those in most need.”