Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of how many and what proportion of children were living in poverty in 2010 based on his Department's households below average income data.

The latest available National statistics on child poverty covering 2021/22 are available here.

This Government has overseen significant falls in absolute poverty since 2009/10. Both rates and numbers of children in absolute poverty (60% of 2010/11 median income, both before and after housing costs) were lower in 2021/22 than in 2009/10.

In 2009/10, 28% (3.7m) children were living in absolute poverty after housing costs.

In 2021/22, 23% (3.3m) children were living in absolute poverty after housing costs.

This means that, in 2021/22, there were 400,000 fewer children in absolute poverty after housing costs than in 2009/10, a decrease of 5 percentage points.