Child Poverty

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. The Government rightly spend significant sums of money on support for disabled people throughout the UK. In fact, I think the amount we spend on disabled people, as a proportion of GDP, is more than is spent by America, Germany and France together. I am proud of that. It is the right thing to do, and we should continue to do it. However, many people who have disabilities are desperate for work. We have now increased the proportion who are in work to record levels, but that is not good enough. I want to get it up to the same level as for the rest of society.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State please explain how redefining child poverty and removing targets will in practice give help today to a child living in poverty in a family who are in work?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We continue to support families who are in work through the various mechanisms we have. As universal credit rolls out, it will add to those mechanisms, and there are additions for families with children. Including the measures I am announcing today, we will address that by ensuring that the children in such families have improved life chances through improved educational achievement. We have already done a huge amount through free school meals, support through childcare—there are massive amounts of new childcare—and the involvement of parents in further work. We are doing more to help those families than was ever done before.