Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if the Government will make an assessment of the findings of the London School of Economics Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion report, Does Money Affect Children's Outcome: An Update, published in July 2017.

Making a meaningful difference to the lives of disadvantaged children requires an approach that goes beyond the safety net of the welfare state to tackle the root causes of child poverty and disadvantage. Work is key to alleviating poverty; children in workless households are five times more likely to be in poverty than those in households where all adults were working. And new analysis carried out by the Department for Work and Pensions shows that children living in workless families are significantly more disadvantaged, and achieve poorer outcomes than other children including those in lower-income working families. This Government’s policies to support and encourage work mean that there are 608,000 fewer children in workless households compared with 2010. Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families, published on 4 April, set out a framework for a continued focus on improving children’s outcomes, now and in the future.