Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of the recommendations in the report, A new measure of poverty for the UK, published by the Social Metrics Commission in September 2018.

We welcome the work that the Social Metrics Commission has done. Measuring poverty is complex, and this report offers further insight into that complexity. From discussions with SMC they acknowledge that further work needs to be done (particularly around data availability and quality). We will carefully consider their recommendations and the detail behind the methodology they have employed when this has been made available.