Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of legally-binding child poverty reduction targets on cross-departmental coordination and prioritisation of resources.

Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Our Child Poverty Strategy fulfils our commitment to reducing poverty this Parliament and sets out our ambition to fundamentally fix the structural drivers of child poverty as part of a long-term, 10-year strategy for lasting change. From the beginning of our time in government we have acted on child poverty including through increasing the minimum wage, the Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit, and the removal of the two child limit from April 2026.

In addition to the existing statutory duty on Government to publish poverty statistics annually, we will be monitoring progress using two complementary headline metrics. These will measure overall child poverty using our leading measure of relative low income and our new measure of deep material poverty that looks at families’ ability to afford essentials as well as their income and housing costs.

The Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, published alongside the Strategy, sets out our plans to track progress against these metrics as part of our ongoing commitment to transparency, accountability, and continued learning. There will continue to be a dedicated team in government that, with Ministerial oversight, will work across government, the public and private sectors and civil society as we develop milestones and plans for delivering, monitoring and evaluating our strategy.

We will publish a baseline report next summer which will set out the latest statistics and evidence, with annual reporting thereafter to monitor and evaluate progress.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to set child poverty and deep poverty reduction targets at the start of each Parliament.

Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Our Child Poverty Strategy fulfils our commitment to reducing poverty this Parliament and sets out our ambition to fundamentally fix the structural drivers of child poverty as part of a long-term, 10-year strategy for lasting change. From the beginning of our time in government we have acted on child poverty including through increasing the minimum wage, the Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit, and the removal of the two child limit from April 2026.

In addition to the existing statutory duty on Government to publish poverty statistics annually, we will be monitoring progress using two complementary headline metrics. These will measure overall child poverty using our leading measure of relative low income and our new measure of deep material poverty that looks at families’ ability to afford essentials as well as their income and housing costs.

The Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, published alongside the Strategy, sets out our plans to track progress against these metrics as part of our ongoing commitment to transparency, accountability, and continued learning. There will continue to be a dedicated team in government that, with Ministerial oversight, will work across government, the public and private sectors and civil society as we develop milestones and plans for delivering, monitoring and evaluating our strategy.

We will publish a baseline report next summer which will set out the latest statistics and evidence, with annual reporting thereafter to monitor and evaluate progress.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of introducing statutory targets for reducing child poverty and deep poverty through the Child Poverty Strategy.

Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Our Child Poverty Strategy fulfils our commitment to reducing poverty this Parliament and sets out our ambition to fundamentally fix the structural drivers of child poverty as part of a long-term, 10-year strategy for lasting change. From the beginning of our time in government we have acted on child poverty including through increasing the minimum wage, the Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit, and the removal of the two child limit from April 2026.

In addition to the existing statutory duty on Government to publish poverty statistics annually, we will be monitoring progress using two complementary headline metrics. These will measure overall child poverty using our leading measure of relative low income and our new measure of deep material poverty that looks at families’ ability to afford essentials as well as their income and housing costs.

The Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, published alongside the Strategy, sets out our plans to track progress against these metrics as part of our ongoing commitment to transparency, accountability, and continued learning. There will continue to be a dedicated team in government that, with Ministerial oversight, will work across government, the public and private sectors and civil society as we develop milestones and plans for delivering, monitoring and evaluating our strategy.

We will publish a baseline report next summer which will set out the latest statistics and evidence, with annual reporting thereafter to monitor and evaluate progress.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether the independent review into foreign financial interference in UK politics will consider donations to individual (a) candidates and (b) politicians in addition to donations to political parties.

Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

The Rycroft review into foreign financial interference in UK politics will involve an in-depth assessment of current financial and bribery related rules and safeguards that regulate political parties and political finance. Those rules apply to candidates for election and regulated donees (among other groups). The review will also offer recommendations to mitigate risks from foreign interference. However, given the review’s independence, we cannot pre-empt specifics of the ground it will cover, nor the recommendations it will make.

The terms of reference for the review can be found here.

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Found: Duncan Smith: Reforming Benefits Expenditure: Making Work Pay and Protecting the Vulnerable • Kirsty Blackman