Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of the statistics collected by the Campaign to End Child Poverty on child poverty rates in Liverpool.

We remain committed to our goal of ending child poverty by 2020. We've already made great strides under this government with 300,000 fewer children in relative poverty and around 390,000 fewer children growing up in workless families, now at the lowest levels since records began.

The Government is taking action to tackle child poverty including introducing Universal Credit, which will simplify the benefit system and ensure that work is always the best option; investing more in nursery and pre-school provision, including providing 260,000 disadvantaged 2 year-olds with 15 hours a week free childcare; investing in education, including £2.5 billion for the Pupil Premium; raising the tax threshold which will lift 3 million more people out of paying tax altogether; and introducing tax cuts for over 26 million people on low incomes.

This Government has taken action to give local areas more freedom to respond to local needs. Under the Child Poverty Act, each Local Authority is required to complete a needs assessment of child poverty in its areas and, working with partners, introduce a local strategy to tackle the local problems. Local Authorities understand the local situation best, and can therefore design effective strategies for tackling child poverty at a local level.