Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Child Poverty Action Group’s 2021 Budget Representation, what assessment she has made of the potential effect of the real terms reduction in child benefit since 2010 on child poverty in (a) Newcastle East constituency and (b) the UK.

No such assessment has been made.

This Government is wholly committed to supporting those on low incomes, including by increasing the living wage, and by spending an estimated £112 billion on welfare support for people of working age in 2020/21. This included around £7.4 billion of Covid-related welfare policy measures, including a temporary increase to the Universal Credit Standard Allowance of £20 per week

National Statistics on the number and percentage of children in low income are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication. Data for Newcastle East is unavailable due to insufficient sample size, however, data for the North East region is available.

The latest figures on the number of children who are in low income in the North East, and in the UK, covering up to 2019/20, can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2014-to-2020 , “children-hbai-timeseries-1994-95-2019-20-tables” in table 4.16ts (relative low income, before and after housing costs) and in table 4.22ts (absolute low income, before and after housing costs).

Across the UK, there were 100,000 fewer children in absolute low income, before housing costs in 2019/20 than in 2009/10.

The Department now publishes supplementary official statistics on the number of children in low income families at constituency level, including Newcastle East. Children in Low Income Families data is published annually.https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2014-to-2020