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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will make an assessment of the effectiveness of local government expenditure on tackling (a) child poverty and (b) poverty.

On 17 July, a new Ministerial Taskforce was set up to drive cross-government action on child poverty, starting with overseeing the development of our ambitious new strategy in line with the Opportunity Mission.

This Government is under no illusions about the scale of the pressure that local authorities are facing and the impact of this pressure on the services councils provide. Future local authority funding decisions will be a matter for the next Spending Review and Local Government Finance Settlement. The department will work with local government leaders to ensure they are better able to fulfil their statutory duties.