Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 25 October 2018 to Question 182119 on Poverty, what steps he is taking to empower civil servants in his Department deliver on civil service competency 8 delivering value for money in the context of policy formulation relating to poverty reduction.

HM Treasury carefully considers the impacts of policy choices on households at different levels of income. The department publishes distributional analysis of the impacts of decisions on tax, welfare, and spending on public services at each fiscal event, and has done so since 2010.

The government has set out that it is committed to tackling the root causes of poverty, including education and worklessness. This approach is working, with 1,000,000 fewer people, including 300,000 fewer children, in absolute poverty (before housing costs) since 2010, both record lows.