Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reasons pensioner poverty increased between 2014-15 and 2015-16.

Latest Households Below Average Income (HBAI) data on low income rates for pensioners showed increases between 2014/15 and 2015/16 on a relative and absolute basis. None of the increases in low income rates were statistically significant, which means we cannot say with high confidence the change is a real one, rather than due to having a different sample for this year of the survey.

These estimates are from sample survey data and subject to statistical uncertainty. Small changes on a year-to-year basis are particularly subject to these uncertainties and it is therefore difficult to identify causality. As such, focus should be more on longer-term trends rather than small year-on-year changes.

Full explanations of the trends in low income rates are available in HBAI:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-below-average-income-199495-to-201516