Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential correlation between the (a) proportion of children living in households affected by the two-child limit and (b) levels of child poverty.

The Government is committed to reducing poverty, including child poverty, and supporting low-income families. We will spend around £276bn through the welfare system in Great Britain in 2023/24 including around £124bn on people of working age and children.

From April 2023, we uprated benefit rates and State Pensions by 10.1% and, subject to Parliamentary approval, working-age benefits will rise by 6.7% from April 2024, in line with inflation.

Our approach to tackling poverty is based on clear evidence that parents in work, particularly where its full time, reduces the risk of poverty. In the financial year 2021 to 2022, children living in households where all adults work were around five times less likely to be in absolute poverty after housing costs than those living in workless households.

In 2021/22 there were 1.7 million fewer people in absolute poverty after housing costs than in 2009/10, including 400,000 fewer children.

No such assessment of the potential correlation between the proportion of children living in households affected by the two-child limit and levels of child poverty has been made.