Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the relationship between poverty in childhood and (a) ill-health and (b) use of the NHS in adulthood.

We want all children to have the healthiest start possible in life, and particularly the poorest children. We have strengthened support for mothers, babies and children by increasing the number of Health Visitors and more than doubling the number of places on the Family Nurse Partnership programme. Health is a new theme of the new Troubled Families Programme, in order to improve the physical and mental health of the adults and children in these families.