Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will publish a strategy on lifting children out of all forms of poverty.

This Government is wholly committed to supporting low-income families through range of measures including by increasing the national living wage and by spending over £111 billion on welfare support for people of working age in 2021/22. With record numbers of vacancies, our focus is on helping people back into work as quickly as possible. This approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of parental employment, particularly where it is full-time, in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty.

Through our Plan for Jobs, we are targeting tailored support schemes at people of all ages to help them prepare for, get into and progress in work. These include: Kickstart, delivering tens of thousands of six-month work placements for Universal Credit claimants aged 16-24 at risk of unemployment; we have also recruited an additional 13,500 work coaches to provide more intensive support to find a job; and introduced Restart which provides 12 months’ intensive employment support to Universal Credit claimants who are unemployed for a year. Our Plan for Jobs interventions will support more than two million people.

To provide additional support for children in low income households, we have increased the value of Healthy Start Food Vouchers from £3.10 to £4.25, helping eligible households buy basic foods like milk, fruit and vitamins. And we are investing up to £220m in the Holiday Activities and Food programme, which has been expanded to every Local Authority across England. Participating children are benefitting from a range of support, including healthy and nutritious meals as well as fun and engaging activities covering the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays in 2021.