Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of HMRC calculations of child poverty in working households; and if he will make a statement.

In the most recent publication “Personal tax credits: Children in low-income families local measure: 2015 snapshot as at 31 August 2015” published on 28 February, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs explained that the introduction of Universal Credit and the High Income Child Benefit charge would have an impact on the publication’s estimates of number of children in low income families, and made an assessment of the impacts.

As a result, HMRC are engaging with users of these statistics to better understand the implications of these impacts so it can develop and assess options for improving these statistics so they continue to meet user needs.