Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the report by the Social Metrics Commission, A new measure of poverty in the UK, published in September 2018, what steps her Department is taking to support single parent families that live in poverty.

Work offers people the best opportunity to get out of poverty. Children of lone parent workless families are around 4 times more likely to be in poverty than those where their parent works full time. We are helping lone parents with the biggest challenges they face. Universal Credit is a modern welfare system where work always pays. Since April 2016, the Universal Credit childcare element covers up to 85% of eligible costs, compared with 70% in the legacy tax credits system. Lone parents are also no longer incentivised to work just 16 hours, unlike the legacy system. National Statistics show there are 100k fewer children of lone parents in absolute poverty than 2010.

We welcome the work that the Social Metrics Commission has done. Measuring poverty is complex, and this report offers further insight into that complexity and the additional measures that can be taken into consideration. From discussions with SMC they acknowledge that further work needs to be done (particularly around data availability and quality). We will carefully consider their recommendations and the detail behind the methodology they have employed when this has been made available.