IAIN Duncan Smith is going to do something about child poverty.

The Work and Pensions Secretary says he wants to eradicate it, despite being told by all and sundry his welfare policies are making the problem worse.

Latest figures showed 210,000 children in poverty in Scotland and the estimates are of another 700,000 across the UK by the time he and his colleagues are next up for election in 2020.

So what is Mr Duncan Smith’s big idea? He will change the definition of poverty. Genius.

The current definition of living blow 60% of the median income puts more than one in five in poverty.

Mr Duncan Smith doesn’t like this so he will change the income measurement.

The Tories claim that having a percentage of median income as the definition of poverty can put more people into poverty and lift people out when the median level goes up or down, while their financial circumstances remain the same.

True, but simply tinkering with the definition won’t change people’s circumstances either.

Action will change people’s circumstances and that is what we should judge a government by.

So let’s look at the action around tax credits, one of the policies which helped lift significant numbers of children out of poverty.

Mr Duncan Smith’s boss, David Cameron, doesn’t like tax credits and he says so.

He speaks of the “merry go round” of people on low incomes being taxed and then getting money back though tax credits "and more in welfare" is what he said.

Oh what fun it must be on the low pay merry-go-round.

So, he can lower taxes, which always benefits the rich more than the poor. And his latest plan is to cut tax credits, which we are likely to hear more about next week from the third amigo in this welfare slashing gang, George Osborne.

But he isn’t talking about increasing wages.

There is no commitment to a Living Wage for all, instead he says we should “extend the drivers of opportunity”.

When George Osborne says he will cut tax credits as part of his drive to slash welfare by a further £12bn. It will be clear who is affected and by how much.

Incomes of the already low paid will fall because the cash help from the state will be cut.

Some people say that tax credits are subsiding employers who pay low wages, which is true but it is not the employer who will suffer from the cuts.

When David Cameron talks about “extending the drivers of opportunity” it is less clear and not a single person’ wages go up as a result.

It is going to be a long five years.