Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to tackle child poverty in large towns and cities.

The Government is committed to reducing poverty, including child poverty, and supporting low-income families. We will spend around £276bn through the welfare system in Great Britain in 2023/24 including around £124bn on people of working age and children.

Working age benefits will increase by 6.7% from April 2024, subject to Parliamentary approval. To further support low-income households, we are also raising the Local Housing Allowance rates to the 30th percentile of local market rents in April 2024, benefiting 1.6 million low-income households.

With over 900,000 vacancies across the UK, our focus remains firmly on supporting parents to move into and progress in work, an approach which is based on clear evidence about the importance of parental employment - particularly where it is full-time - in substantially reducing the risk of child poverty. The latest statistics show that children living in workless households were around 5 times more likely to be in absolute poverty after housing costs than those where all adults work.

Our core Jobcentre offer provides a range of options to help people into work, including face-to-face time with Work Coaches and targeted employment support. We will also increase the National Living Wage by 9.8% to £11.44 for workers aged 21 years and over from this April - an annual increase in gross earnings of over £1800 for someone working full-time on the National Living Wage.