Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to provide support for children living in poverty who are at risk of being taken into the care system.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government published ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ in February 2023. ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ is an implementation strategy and consultation that sets out the department’s plans to reform children’s social care. It set out how the department will help families overcome challenges, keep children safe and make sure children in care have stable loving homes, long-term loving relationships and opportunities for a good life.
This government has announced over £1 billion for programmes to improve early help services, including delivering on Family Hubs and helping families facing multiple disadvantage through the Supporting Families programme and Holiday Activities and Food programme.
The Strengthening Families, Protecting Children programme is investing £84 million over five years between 2019 and 2024 to support 17 local authorities to adopt improvement approaches that have strong evidence of reducing the numbers of children requiring statutory support and entering care.
The department is also testing innovative new approaches to provide earlier help to families when they face challenges through the Families First for Children Pathfinder.
Over recent years, this government has demonstrated its commitment to supporting the most vulnerable with one of the largest support packages in Europe. The total support over 2022 to 2025 to help households and individuals with higher bills amounts to £108 billion, which is an average of £3,800 per UK household.
Through an extension of the Household Support Fund, local authorities in England will receive an additional £421 million to support those in need locally, including supporting vulnerable households with the cost of essentials such as food and utilities.
Asked by: Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the child poverty statistics published on 21 March, what plans they have to initiate a cross-government strategy to address child poverty.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions already works consistently across Government to support the most vulnerable households. This includes a cross-government senior officials’ group on poverty.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the release of data showing that the number of children living in absolute poverty has risen by the highest rate in 30 years, what steps they are taking to address the increase in child poverty rates.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
These statistics cover 2022/23, a year when war in Ukraine and global supply chain challenges led to unexpected and high rates on inflation, averaging 10% over the year. These factors are reflected in the statistics. In response to these pressures, the Government provided an unprecedented cost of living support package which helped to shield households from the impact of inflation. Analysis shows that the Government’s cost of living support prevented 1.3 million people from falling into absolute poverty after housing costs in 2022/23. That includes 300,000 children, 600,000 working-age adults and 400,000 pensioners.
Since the period covered by these statistics, the Government has taken firm action to support families on the lowest incomes. The Government has spent around £276bn through the welfare system in 2023/24, including around £125bn on people of working age and children. We took action to support those on the lowest incomes by uprating benefits and State Pensions by 10.1% from April 2023. We are continuing to support people in 2024/25 by uprating working age benefits by 6.7% and raising the Local Housing Allowance rates to the 30th percentile of local market rents, benefiting 1.6 million low-income households.
With over 900,000 vacancies across the UK, our focus remains firmly on supporting parents to move into and progress in work, an approach which is based on clear evidence about the importance of parental employment - particularly where it is full-time - in substantially reducing the risk of child poverty. The latest statistics show that in 2022/23, children living in workless households were over 6 times more likely to be in absolute poverty (after housing costs) than those where all adults work.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Leicester (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Lord Markham on 11 March (HL Deb col 1802), and taking account of the latest Households Below Average Income data, which shows a 300,000 increase in the number of children living in absolute poverty in the past year, what assessment they have made of the impact on health and well-being of the two-child limit for child benefit; and what assessment they have made of the strengths and weaknesses of using the measure of absolute poverty rather than relative poverty.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
It is not possible to produce a robust assessment of the impact of the two-child limit.
Child Benefit continues to be paid for all children in eligible families.
Relative poverty sets a threshold as a proportion of the UK median income and moves each year as average income changes.
Typically, a household is in relative poverty if its income is less than 60 per cent of the median household income.
Absolute poverty, by our definition, is a threshold as a proportion of the UK average income in a given year (2010/11) and moves each year in line with inflation.
This government prefers to look at Absolute poverty over Relative poverty as relative poverty can provide counter-intuitive results.
Relative poverty is likely to fall during recessions, due to falling median incomes. Under this measure, poverty can decrease even if people are getting poorer.
The absolute poverty line is fixed in real terms, so will only ever worsen if people are getting poorer, and only ever improve if people are getting richer.
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the number of children living in (a) absolute and (b) relative poverty in each year since 2007 in (i) England, (ii) Scotland, (iii) Wales, (iv) Northern Ireland and (v) the UK.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Statistics on the number of Children living in absolute and relative poverty per country in the UK are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication in “table 4.22ts” and “table 4.17ts” (respectively) of “children-hbai-timeseries-1994-95-2022-23-tables” at Households below average income: for financial years ending 1995 to 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The latest statistics published on 21 March 2024 are for the financial period 2022/23.
The latest available data can also be found on Stat-Xplore: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has had recent discussions with (a) Unicef and (b) the United Nations Rapporteur on extreme poverty on initiatives to tackle child poverty.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP officials engage with a wide range of stakeholders including UNICEF.
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of children living in (a) absolute and (b) relative poverty per constituency in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Statistics on the number of Children living in absolute and relative poverty per constituency are published annually in the “Children in low income families: local area statistics” publication and can be found in tabs “6_Absolute_ParlC” and “5_Relative_ParlC” at Children in low income families: local area statistics 2014 to 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The latest statistics published on 21 March 2024 are for the financial period 2022/23.
The latest available data can also be found on Stat-Xplore: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the two child limit on the numbers of children living in (a) absolute and (b) relative poverty between 2018 and 2035.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It is not possible to produce a robust assessment.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has had recent discussions with the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland on trends in the number of children living in households in relative poverty in that region.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP officials regularly meet with colleagues at the Department for Communities and the meetings cover a broad range of topics, including poverty.
Absolute poverty is the government’s preferred measure as the poverty line is fixed in real terms so is not affected by overall median income. In the three years up to 2021/22 (excluding 2020/21), 17% of children in Northern Ireland were in absolute poverty after housing costs compared to 26% in the three years up to 2009/10.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps the Government has taken to ensure that families living in poverty in the UK have sufficient (a) food (b) energy and (c) basic household goods.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is committed to a sustainable, long-term approach to tackling poverty and supporting people on lower incomes. We will spend around £276bn through the welfare system in Great Britain in 2023/24 including around £124bn on people of working age and children.
Working age benefits will increase by 6.7% from April 2024. We are also raising the Local Housing Allowance rates to the 30th percentile of local market rents in April 2024, benefiting 1.6 million low-income households.
With over 900,000 vacancies across the UK, our focus remains firmly on supporting parents to move into and progress in work, an approach which is based on clear evidence about the importance of parental employment - particularly where it is full-time - in substantially reducing the risk of child poverty. The latest statistics show that, in 2021/22, children living in workless households were around 5 times more likely to be in absolute poverty after housing costs than those where all adults work.
Our core Jobcentre offer provides a range of options to help people into work, including face-to-face time with Work Coaches and targeted employment support. We will also increase the National Living Wage by 9.8% to £11.44 for workers aged 21 years and over from this April - an annual increase in gross earnings of over £1800 for someone working full-time on the National Living Wage.
To further help parents on Universal Credit who are moving into work or increasing their hours, the Government is providing additional support with upfront childcare costs. We have also increased the childcare costs that parents on Universal Credit can claim back by nearly 50%, up to £951 a month for one child and £1,630 for two or more children.
As announced in Spring Budget, £500m of additional funding also enables the extension of the Household Support Fund, including funding for the Devolved Administrations through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion. This means that Local Authorities in England will receive an additional £421m to support those in need locally through the Household Support Fund.