Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the potential effect of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement on levels of poverty in (a) the UK and (b) Scotland.

No such assessment has been made.

Estimating the potential impact of individual policies on future levels of poverty is not possible as it would require making judgements about what will happen to every persons’ income in the future and then also isolating potential changes in income due to the effect of specific policies on certain individuals. It is not possible to do this accurately as there is so much uncertainty involved in projecting incomes.