Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report UK Poverty 2022: The essential guide to understanding poverty in the UK, published on 18 January; and what steps they plan to take, if any, in response to the case for "co-ordinated commitment, effort and action on the intersecting issues and challenges" identified in the report in order to address "deep and persistent poverty" in the UK.

The poverty statistics included in the Joseph Rowntree Trust’s report cover the period to 2019/20 and therefore do not help us to understand how low-income households have fared over the last two financial years. The data shows that in 2019/20, household incomes saw their strongest annual growth for nearly 20 years, and that 700,000 fewer people, including 100,000 fewer children, were in absolute poverty before housing costs compared with 2010.

The Government is committed to a sustainable, long-term approach to tackling poverty.