Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment his Department has made of the number of children living in poverty in Poplar and Limehouse constituency.

The latest available data showing the number and proportion of children in absolute and relative poverty before housing costs by parliamentary constituency can be found in the children in low-income families local area statistics. Absolute poverty after housing costs is the government’s preferred measure as the poverty line is fixed in real terms so is not affected by overall median income.

Households Below Average Income (HBAI) provides estimates of children in low-income families only at national and regional levels but can’t provide estimates by parliamentary constituency due to the sample size of the survey at that level.

Children in Low Income Families (CiLIF) is constructed using administrative data and calibrated to the HBAI regional estimates for consistency at that level. This use of administrative data provides more granular local area information not available from HBAI alone.

More background information on CiLIF and the methodology can be found here.