Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of their preventative approach with regard to addressing the root causes of poverty in the long term.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
This Government is committed to action that tackles the root causes of poverty and disadvantage. We are undertaking the most ambitious reform to the welfare system in decades to ensure that it supports people to find and progress in work. This is because we have clear evidence that work offers families the best opportunity to get out of poverty and to become self-reliant. Adults in workless families are 4 times more likely to be in poverty than those in working families. We also know that children living in workless households are 5 times more likely to be in poverty than those where all adults work. We are making good progress. Nationally, there are now 954,000 fewer workless households, and 608,000 fewer children living in such households compared with 2010.
In Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families, we set out a framework for a continued focus on improving children’s long-term outcomes. This includes nine national indicators to track progress across government in tackling the disadvantages that can affect families and their children. The Government has a statutory duty to report annually against two of these indicators - parental employment, and children’s educational attainment.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many children were living in poverty in working families in each year since 2010.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
National statistics on the number of children, in a family with at least one adult in work, in relative low income can be calculated from figures published in the annual "Households Below Average Income" publication.
Year | Number of children living in relative low income before housing costs in a family with at least one adult in work |
2009/10 | 1.4m |
2010/11 | 1.4m |
2011/12 | 1.5m |
2012/13 | 1.5m |
2013/14 | 1.5m |
2014/15 | 1.7m |
2015/16 | 1.8m |
The increase is partly driven by more families being in employment. The number of children in a family with at least one adult in work has increased by 800,000 since 2009/10. The chances of a child being in relative low income (before housing costs) when living in a family with at least one adult in work was 15% in 2015/16, which is the same as before the financial crisis (e.g. 2007/08).
This publication also shows that the chances of a child being in relative low income are diminished when work is the norm. The figures show that children in households where all adults work are five times less likely to be in relative low income before housing costs than children in workless households.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Buscombe on 12 December 2017 (HL3812), which (1) ministers, (2) departments, (3) agencies, and (4) arm’s length government bodies, including non-ministerial departments, executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies and public corporations, have responsibility for poverty, and issues relating to poverty.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
This Government is committed to collective action that tackles the root causes of poverty and disadvantage through a range of policies, such as Universal Credit, the National Living Wage, tax changes, and up to 30 hours of free childcare a week to incentivise employment as the best opportunity for families to get out of poverty and become self-reliant.
In Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families, we set out a framework for a continued focus on improving children’s long-term outcomes. This includes nine national indicators to track progress across a number of departments in tackling the disadvantages that can affect families and their children. The Government has a statutory duty to report annually against two of these indicators - parental employment, and children’s educational attainment. The relevant departments and agencies - Department for Education, Department of Health and Social Care, Public Health England, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, HM Treasury and Department for Work and Pensions – all aim to publish data on the other, non-statutory indicators by the end of March.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what lessons they have learned from measures to tackle the root causes of poverty taken by the devolved administrations, social enterprises, non-governmental organisations, charities and other organisations.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
Officials in DWP continue to engage with external organisations and with devolved administrations on a wide range of welfare issues, including constructive discussions about approaches to tackling poverty. The Government is very clear that work is the best route out of poverty and our welfare reforms are designed to incentivise employment and support people to progress in work.
In April this year we published Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families which sets out a framework to improve outcomes for workless families, now and in the future. Central to this approach is effective joint working between Jobcentre Plus and local partners, including third sector organisations, which specialise in supporting people with multiple and complex needs, to ensure coordination of support and sharing of expertise at a local level. Children in workless families are significantly more disadvantaged, and achieve poorer educational and employment outcomes than other children, including those in lower-income working families. That is why we will continue with policies that support and encourage employment - reforming the welfare system to make work pay. And these policies are working: since 2010, there are 3 million more people in work, with 954,000 fewer workless households, and 608,000 fewer children in workless households across the UK. The UK unemployment rate has not been lower since 1975 and the proportion of workless households is at its lowest since records began.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions, if any, they have had with the devolved administrations since 2010 about possible coordinated actions across the UK to reduce (1) poverty, and (2) child poverty; whether they have learned any lessons from specific initiatives introduced by those administrations that may now be applied in England; and if so, what.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
This Government is committed to an approach to tackling poverty that goes beyond a focus on the safety net of the welfare system. Work is the best route out of poverty and our welfare reforms are designed to incentivise employment and support people to progress in work. There are now 954,000 fewer workless households and 608,000 fewer children in workless households across the UK compared with 2010. Through Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families we have set out a framework for a continued focus for improving outcomes for workless families, now and in the future.
The Scottish Government has powers in the Scotland Act 2016 to introduce new provision in areas where responsibility is devolved and the Devolved Government in Wales and Scotland are also free to develop their own approaches to tackling child poverty.
Officials in DWP continue to have regular engagement with devolved administrations on a wide range of welfare issues, including constructive discussions about the Improving Lives evidence base and approaches to tackling poverty.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Buscombe on 28 July (HL954), in what ways, and by which means, (1) ministers, and (2) departments, work together to tackle the root causes of poverty, including through (a) committees, (b) units, (c) taskforces, and (d) forums.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families, published on 4 April, set out a framework for improving outcomes for disadvantaged children, now and in the future. The Department for Work and Pensions continues to work with key stakeholders and with other Departments to take forward the four policies set out in the paper. Further announcements will be made in due course.
This paper also set out national statutory and non-statutory indicators to track progress in tackling worklessness and associated disadvantages that can affect families’ and children’s lives. We made available the latest analysis and an evidence base to enable local authorities, local partners and others to understand, and act on, the complex factors of disadvantage in their local area. This includes local-level data on the factors of disadvantage that are available through a local government data tool (LG Inform).
The Department for Work and Pensions works across government and is represented at a ministerial level at a number of groups and forums which focus on supporting those who are most disadvantaged, including the Social Reform Committee, Inter Ministerial Groups on Homelessness, Gangs and Violence against Women and Girls and the Drugs Strategy Group. In the future DWP will co-chair the Financial Inclusion Policy Forum with the Economic Secretary to the Treasury.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, in the light of the Institute for Fiscal Studies report, Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2017–18 to 2021–22, what steps they will take to prevent the projected increase in the level of absolute child poverty.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
Employment is key to helping people out of poverty and our welfare and tax reforms are designed to support people into employment. Employment is at historically high levels and the number of children living in a household where no one is working is 608,000 lower than it was in 2010.
This Government is committed to action that will make a meaningful difference to the lives of the most disadvantaged children and families. Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families, published on 4 April, set out a framework for a continued focus on improving children’s outcomes, now and in the future. A copy of this report is attached.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
Her Majesty's Government how they define, monitor and assess (1) poverty, and (2) the root causes of poverty, in the UK.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
This Government is committed to an approach that tackles the root causes of poverty and disadvantage. Through Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families, published on 4 April, it published its evidence and analysis on the root causes of disadvantage and the impact they can have on children’s lives. It also set out nine national indicators and underlying measures to track progress in tackling these disadvantages and to drive continued action on improving outcomes for disadvantaged children and families, now and in the future.
The most commonly used measure of poverty is ‘relative low-income’. Estimates on the number and proportion of people in low income are published annually in the ‘Households Below Average Income’ series. It measures how the incomes of one group compare to median incomes in the UK, with those incomes below 60 per cent of the median classified as being in relative low-income.
For more details on the definitions of low income please see the latest Households Below Average Income report attached.