The House is always packed and the more so when the budget is to follow.

So when this week I was successful in the ballot to ask the first question in PMQs it was a chance to encourage the Government further in the campaign to "End Child Poverty".

When I was first elected back in 1997 there were more than 2,000,000 children living in poverty (the definition by the way is ever moving in that it means living in a family that has an income of less than 60% of the average). What child poverty means is not necessarily being hungry or cold (although it sometimes does) but being unable to take part in the full range of activities that other kids can. It means being denied the broader opportunities that other children take for granted.

So many of us in Parliament and particularly those who represent areas where there is just too much child poverty such as in Hastings have been campaigning hard for Government policies that will make the difference.

In 2000 the Government committed to eradicate child poverty in a generation (by 2020) and to seek to half the number by 2010.

So far Government measures have meant that the near 2,000,000 children in poverty in the year 2000 has fallen by 600,000 but leaving a good few to deal with before the halfway point in 2010.

My question to the Prime Minister was therefore to acknowledge the work that has been done but to ask what further measures he could suggest that would get us back on target.

Higher levels of employment, the minimum wage, child tax credits and child benefit were all part of the package he said that had brought us this far. The good news for our campaign is was not what the Prime Minister said but what Alistair Darling the Chancellor said just an hour later. He told us that by next April families with children in the poorest fifth of the population will be on average £82 a week better off in real terms than in 1997 and that is good. But the practical policies he then announced were really worthwhile.

From 2009 he said child benefit will increase to £20 a week for the first child and the child tax credit element will increase by £50 a year above inflation. Even more important I feel is that in calculating income for housing and council tax benefit from next year child benefit will be disregarded thus improving the lot of the working family in rented accommodation by up to £17 a week.

We calculate that that will lift up to 250,000 additional children out of poverty in 2010 which together with the changes announced last year may get us close to our target of halving child poverty by 2010.

But this is a campaign that must continue for the next 50% will be even harder.
Ultimately for most families work will be the answer. But in an area such as Hastings we need to find jobs that are better paid as although work now nearly always pays over benefits it often does not pay enough.

Although overall the budget was a reflection of the world economic slowdown and some extra taxes were needed to help balance the books, it was good that another group , Pensioners, were not forgotten. Up to 600,000 more pensioners will be taken out of tax or pay lower levels of tax in the coming year- all pensioners will see an increase in the winter fuel payment to £250 for those over 60 and £400 for those over 80 to help with the increased fuel bills - and of course all will receive the free nationwide bus travel from April. For those on the very lowest incomes the income guarantee (pensioner credit) will increase to £124 for a single person and £189 for a couple. It is worth remembering that if the income support payments as it was then called had increased by only inflation since the Tories left office(as it did under the Tories) and after allowing for inflation, the poorest pensioners would be at least £35 a week worse off than they now are. But that is not a cause for complacency and we must carry on doing what we can and when we can and that we will.