Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Flello Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

Every week, another new task comes from the Labour party for the OBR. Child poverty is down by 300,000. That is the record and those are the numbers that have been produced. We believe that the OBR has had a very good start as an organisation. We value it and believe that it has an important future, and we will not jeopardise it by letting Labour use it for party political games.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of his fiscal policies on the level of child poverty.

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Priti Patel)]

The Government are protecting vulnerable groups while taking action to tackle the record deficit we inherited. Work remains the best route out of poverty and the Budget took action to support families and to make the tax and welfare system fairer, further increasing the income tax personal allowance to £10,500 in 2015-16, which will take 3.2 million people on low incomes out of tax altogether.

[Robert Flello]

I was amazed by the answer given by the Minister’s colleague to the previous question, so perhaps I will try her on the same point. Are she and her colleague in the least bit troubled by the fact that the IFS forecasts that child poverty will rise by 400,000 during this Parliament?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the Government are committed to ending child poverty by 2020. Under this Government, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has already said, child poverty has fallen by more than 300,000 since 2010. The best route out of poverty is work and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will support that route.