Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to increase the take up of means-tested benefits in households with children in poverty.

The Child Poverty Taskforce is progressing urgent work to publish the Child Poverty Strategy, and we are exploring all available levers to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty. High childcare costs are a key barrier in preventing individuals into work, we want to ensure that the right financial help is provided to make it easier for low incomes families to choose work, stay in and progress in work.

Our focus is on bringing about an enduring reduction in child poverty in this parliament, thereby reversing the trend that is seeing forecasts of child poverty continuing to increase. More details, including on the time horizon, will be set out in the strategy publication.