Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will launch a public consultation on setting a target to reduce child poverty.

Tackling child poverty and disadvantage is a priority for this Government. We are convinced that there is a better approach than through setting income-related targets such as those set out in the Child Poverty Act 2010. This is why we replaced those targets with statutory measures of parental worklessness and children’s educational attainment – the two areas that can make the biggest difference to children’s outcomes. We will build on these measures through our forthcoming Green Paper on Social Justice.