Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent steps she has taken with Cabinet colleagues to help alleviate child poverty in (a) Slough and (b) the Thames Valley region.

In the Labour manifesto we committed to developing an ambitious strategy to reduce child Poverty. I am part of the ministerial Child Poverty Taskforce which has since been established to drive this forward, aiming to publish a Child Poverty Strategy in Spring 2025. On 23 October we published our framework ‘Tackling Child Poverty: Developing Our Strategy’ and are exploring all available levers to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty. Local authorities are key partners in tackling child poverty and we will continue to engage with them to ensure the Strategy supports and enables shared solutions.