Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

I remind the hon. Lady that, as I said earlier, information is already shared with local authorities on a confidential basis. [Interruption.] We need to maintain the confidentiality of the data to ensure the integrity of national statistics. [Laughter.] The Opposition may treat national statistics cavalierly, but it is absolutely right that we protect the data to get the best information out there. There are no constraints on employers, local authorities or Work programme providers working together to share information, to get the most effective possible scheme in place.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

21. What steps he is taking to develop new measurements of child poverty?

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

The latest figures show that despite the previous Government spending huge sums—more than £300 billion—on working age welfare and tax credits, during their latter stages the level of poverty actually rose, and it was clear that the figures for measurement do not work as well as they should.

The Government are committed to eradicating child poverty and to the targets that we set up, but we are also interested in developing better measures through a consultation that will be launched this autumn.

[Pauline Latham]

Does the Secretary of State agree that if we are going to tackle child poverty, we must tackle its root causes?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One problem with some of the ways in which child poverty is measured is that not enough credence is given to the fact that we need to get beyond the simple point about money, and look into what causes some families to remain persistently in poverty. Although the latest figures show that relative poverty fell by 2% over the past year, I do not try to claim any point of success because levels of absolute poverty remained flat. The reason relative poverty fell is that during the major recession the overall economy fell as well, but that is no way to measure whether people are in poverty or not.