What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

David Cameron is blocking moves to publish figures showing the gap between the rich and the poor in Britain.

Aid groups want all countries, including developed nations, to publish wealth equality statistics as part of a drive to tackle world hunger.

But the PM will refuse the move, despite co-chairing a UN panel on aid goals in New York today, amid fears child poverty in the UK could rise by 400,000 by 2023.

One aid agency source said the High Level Panel meeting was “a bit of a car crash.”

Brendan Cox, director of policy and advocacy at Save the Children, said: “This meeting is the last chance for the Prime Minister to save the panel’s report from being relegated to obscurity.

"With a long UN process still to run he must ensure an ambitious proposal from the panel that is powerful enough to shape the rest of the debate and focus minds on global action to end extreme poverty in our lifetime.

“The panel has to pass two tests; will it set out goals to eliminate poverty in all its forms and will it address inequality and discrimination which in many countries is the only route to poverty eradication?

"If it fails on either count it will join a long list of panel reports that gather dust in UN basements.”