Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

1. What steps his Department is taking to improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged children and families.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged children and families.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

20. What steps his Department is taking to improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged children and families.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is exactly right: family stability is a really important part of our mission to tackle entrenched disadvantage. That is why we have doubled funding for relationship support to £70 million and are significantly expanding support for parents. In addition, through our local family offer, we are working with 12 local authorities, including his own in Essex, to learn how best to strengthen the support they offer to families.

[Oliver Colvile]

As my right hon. Friend might know, there is a 12-year difference in life expectancy between one side of my city of Plymouth and the other. What advice would he give to improve chances and life expectancy in Plymouth?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is right that such inequality is unacceptable in Britain today, and that is why our life chances approach includes a set of statutory and non-statutory indicators that will drive action to tackle the wide range of complex and deep-rooted factors that can trap people in poverty, damaging their health and preventing them from making the most of their lives.