Helen Hayes – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2015-10-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 September 2015 to Question 8870, whether the new life chances measures will monitor households where an adult is in work; and what steps he plans to take to measure the effects of welfare changes on child poverty for children in working households with low incomes.

Priti Patel

The Government is committed to working to eliminate child poverty and improving life chances for children.

We are clear that the existing low-income measures do not drive the right action to tackle the root causes of child poverty. They simply deal with the symptoms.

We are now setting out a new way to drive effective action and make a real difference in the lives of disadvantaged children. Our proposals in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill introduce new statutory measures of worklessness and educational attainment. For the first time, we are ensuring through legislation that Government action will be focused on these areas, where the evidence tells us we can make the biggest difference for our children – now and in the future.

These measures will be reported annually, which means progress will be clearly visible for all to see. My Department will also continue to publish low-income statistics as part of the ‘Households Below Average Income’ publication.