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 trends in the level of child poverty; and what steps she is taking to ensure that families with children have adequate financial support.

Tackling child poverty is at the heart of the Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and improve the life chances of every child. Child poverty has increased by 900,000 since 2010, with 4.5 million children now living in poverty in the UK. The Child Poverty Taskforce will publish a Child Poverty Strategy in the autumn that will deliver fully funded measures to tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty.

The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments. The Strategy will tackle overall child poverty as well as going beyond that to focus on children in deepest poverty lacking essentials, and what is needed to give every child the best start in life.

As a significant downpayment ahead of strategy publication, we have already announced substantive action across major drivers of child poverty. This includes an expansion of Free School Meals that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the parliament. and a new £1 billion package to reform crisis support, including funding to ensure the poorest children do not go hungry outside of term time. This comes alongside a £39 billion investment in social and affordable housing – the biggest investment in a generation – and £13.2bn including Barnett impact across the Parliament for the Warm Homes Plan.

We’ve also committed to rolling out Best Start Family Hubs in every local authority by April 2026 and creating up to 1,000 hubs across the country by the end of 2028. Backed by £500m funding, this vital support will relieve pressure on parents and give half a million more children the very best start in life. And last month, we confirmed funding of £600m for the Holiday Activities and Food programme for the next three years, ensuring that children and young people can continue to benefit from enriching experiences and nutritious meals during the school holidays.

These commitments come on top of the existing action we have taken which includes expanding free breakfast clubs, capping the number of branded school uniform items children are expected to wear, increasing the national minimum wage for those on the lowest incomes and supporting 700,000 of the poorest families by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate on Universal Credit deductions.

To further support struggling families, funding of £742 million will be provided to enable the extension of the Household Support Fund from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 in England, plus additional funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion.