Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to reduce child poverty in (a) Leicester and (b) the UK.

The Government is committed to action that delivers a sustainable long-term solution to child poverty in all areas of the UK, including reforming the benefits system so that it supports employment and higher pay.

There is clear evidence that work, in particular full time work, significantly reduces the risk of being in poverty. For example, there is only a 4% chance of a child being in absolute poverty before housing costs where both parents work full-time, compared to 44% where one or more parents in a couple are in part-time work.

Universal Credit will provide an extra £2.1bn a year once fully rolled out, compared to the legacy benefits it replaces. Claimants receive better support to prepare for work, move into work, or to increase earnings. The Universal Credit Work Allowance was increased by £1,000 in April 2019 and means that 2.4m households will keep an extra £630 of income each year.

Other measures we have taken to support working families include delivering another rise in the National Living Wage - increasing a full-time worker’s annual pay by over £2,750 since its introduction, and by nearly £3,700 with the recently announced rise from this April. Our tax changes make basic rate tax payers over £1,200 better off from April 2019, compared with 2010.

DWP and HMRC have pre-announced publication of improved Official Statistics on Children in Low Income Families at local area level. These statistics will provide insights of the number of children and the proportion of children living in low income families at constituency level and how these compare over time and across constituencies.