Asked by: Ben Coleman (Labour - Chelsea and Fulham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with disabled children’s charities, in the context of the development of a child poverty strategy.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Poverty Taskforce, of which the Department of Education Secretary of State is Co-Chair, is building on the wealth of existing evidence and expertise across the UK to develop an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty. We are listening carefully to the voices of children with disabilities and special educational needs (SEND) who live in poverty, as well as the charities and organisations that represent them. Examples of the engagement we’ve undertaken are events with: Contact, a charity for families with disabled children; ALLFIE, a campaign group focused on including disabled learners in mainstream education; and the Challenging Behaviour Foundation that aims to improve the life opportunities for young people with severe learning disabilities and their families.
The Taskforce recognises that poverty impacts the whole family so, alongside this, a forum of parents and carers has been brought together to input to the Strategy. The approach has been designed to be inclusive and capture the experiences of a broad range of parents, carers and children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities.
Asked by: Ben Coleman (Labour - Chelsea and Fulham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with disabled young people, in the context of the development of a child poverty strategy.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Poverty Taskforce, of which the Department of Education Secretary of State is Co-Chair, is building on the wealth of existing evidence and expertise across the UK to develop an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty. We are listening carefully to the voices of children with disabilities and special educational needs (SEND) who live in poverty, as well as the charities and organisations that represent them. Examples of the engagement we’ve undertaken are events with: Contact, a charity for families with disabled children; ALLFIE, a campaign group focused on including disabled learners in mainstream education; and the Challenging Behaviour Foundation that aims to improve the life opportunities for young people with severe learning disabilities and their families.
The Taskforce recognises that poverty impacts the whole family so, alongside this, a forum of parents and carers has been brought together to input to the Strategy. The approach has been designed to be inclusive and capture the experiences of a broad range of parents, carers and children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities.
Asked by: Ben Coleman (Labour - Chelsea and Fulham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the additional costs to families for raising a disabled child.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The DWP pays close attention to the evidence base on the extra costs faced by disabled children, including external academic research but does not endorse a particular external study.
For example, Scope’s Disability Price Tag (2023) uses a sensitive economic modelling methodology called the standard of living approach. They state that a family with a disabled child would have to pay £581 a month to have the same standard of living as a family with a non-disabled child. For 1 in 5 families, these costs can exceed £1000 per month. The existing evidence base that uses similar methodologies produce a wide range of estimates of this cost, ranging from £600 to £1,500 per month, reflecting a high degree of uncertainty around the true additional costs faced by families raising a disabled child.