Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

12. What his plans are for reducing absolute child poverty.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

The hon. Gentleman asks a really important question about absolute poverty. The threshold has been rebased this year under a new baseline. That changes the way it is reported. Those changes result from a reclassification and do not represent a real change in children’s circumstances. However, low-income and material deprivation is static or marginally improved.

The hon. Gentleman asks about what we are doing. There are a number of programmes through bringing in universal credit to help the poorest to some of the Work programme and the troubled families programme—I will go through more detail with him if he wants—as well as the pupil premium, and early intervention and education. There is a raft of work to try to change the lives of those likely to be on low incomes.

[Mr Sheerman]

I know the Secretary of State to be thoughtful man, and quite a caring man as well, but is he not concerned that Maggie Atkinson, the Children’s Commissioner, only as recently as last week said that the recent reforms of welfare benefit had put another 600,000 children into real poverty?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I like to think that on both sides of the House the objective is to reduce child poverty. That is our stated objective; I think it was the stated objective of the Labour Government.