MORE than 200,000 children in the North-East and North Yorkshire live in families facing cuts to their tax credits, research by a charity has revealed.

The Children's Society has issued the figures with the warning that the cuts risk pushing many more children into poverty.

Last month the House of Lords voted to delay the changes and Chancellor George Osborne agreed to come back with measures to soften the impact on families.

But the Government has so far refused to rule out pushing ahead with the £4.4bn cuts next April as planned.

Families must wait until next week’s Autumn statement to find out how they will be affected.

Research by The Children’s Society shows how the proposed technical changes to tax credits - reducing income thresholds and disregards and increasing taper rates - would lead to 2.4 million working families with 4.5 million children across the UK losing hundreds or even thousands of pounds per year.

In the North-East, the charity has calculated that 101,500 families face cuts to their tax credits, with 183,900 children within those families set to be affected.

In North Yorkshire, 19,300 families including 36,200 could be hit.

Matthew Reed, chief executive of The Children’s Society, said: “Children will be the biggest losers if these deeply unfair cuts to working households go ahead.

“Parents would no doubt do what they could to shield their children from the impact. But the reality is that tax credits are vital for poorer families who work long hours to provide the basics for their children.

“Cutting their income in this way, by more than £1,000 a year in many cases, would risk pushing more children into poverty, as well as undermining incentives to move into work or earn more."

The Children’s Society is calling on the Government to abandon the planned cuts or make sure any reductions are phased in over time with existing claimants protected.

In response, the HM Treasury said the charity's research was out of date.

A spokeswoman added: “Like other analyses, the examples cited here don’t seem to consider other measures the Government has introduced or is introducing to support working families, such as the free childcare that will be worth £5,000 a year per child, freezes in council tax and fuel duty throughout the last Parliament, higher public spending on the NHS and schools, or the knock-on effects which will be felt higher up the earnings scale thanks to the new National Living Wage.”

The TUC published a report on Wednesday warning that North-East families will be among the hardest hits from the cuts to tax credits in the country with claimants losing an average of £1,410 each.