Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 16 June 2025 to Question 58330 on Poverty: Children, what role local authorities will play in delivering the Child Poverty Strategy; and how she plans to ensure consistency in support across different regions.
Tackling child poverty is at the heart of this Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and the Child Poverty Taskforce is developing an ambitious child poverty strategy which we will publish in the Autumn. It is important we take the time to get it right to ensure we deliver fully funded measures which tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty.
As a significant downpayment ahead of strategy publication, we have already taken substantive action across major drivers of child poverty through the Spending Review 2025. This includes an expansion of Free School Meals that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the parliament, establishing a long-term Crisis and Resilience Fund, supported by £1bn a year including Barnett impact, investing in local family support services, and extending the £3 bus fare cap. We also announced the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation and £13.2bn including Barnett impact across the Parliament for the Warm Homes Plan.
Our commitments at SR 2025 come on top of the existing action we have taken, including expanding free breakfast clubs, capping the number of branded school uniform items children are expected to wear, increasing the national minimum wage for those on the lowest incomes and supporting 700,000 of the poorest families by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate on Universal Credit deductions.
The UK Government is committed to tackling child poverty across the UK where progress is contingent on reserved, devolved, and local levers. The Child Poverty Taskforce is working with the Devolved Governments alongside strategic, combined and local authorities to develop a comprehensive Child Poverty Strategy. Local authorities have also been a key part of our approach to learning directly about the experience of poverty in different communities and solutions already underway.
The Taskforce recognises the distinct challenges of poverty faced by children living in rural and coastal areas, and we are considering all children across the UK in the development of the strategy. To shape and inform these plans, the Taskforce is listening to experts and campaigners and engaging with families, charities, and leading organisations across the UK, including rural and coastal communities.