Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in (a) Warrington Borough and (b) Warrington North constituency were in (i) relative and (ii) absolute poverty in 1997-98 and each year since.

The information requested is not available.

Estimates of the number of people in low income households are published in the National Statistics Households Below Average Income (HBAI) series. HBAI uses household income adjusted (or ‘equivalised') for household size and composition, to provide a proxy for standard of living. This information is captured using the Family Resources Survey.

The latest figures for people reported to be in relative and absolute poverty by the HBAI series can be found in the latest HBAI publication, available at the link below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/325416/households-below-average-income-1994-1995-2012-2013.pdf (ISBN 978-1-78425-188-8)

Supporting data tables, which include figures for each region of the UK, are available at the link below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/households-below-average-income-hbai-199495-to-201213

Information atconstituency or local authority level is not available as the sample size of the Family Resources Survey is not sufficient to provide robust estimates. The lowest geography at which poverty estimates are reported is regional level.