Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

What recent assessment she has made of the effect of the benefit freeze on trends in the level of child poverty.

An Impact Assessment of the benefit freeze was published in 2015. Evidence shows that work is the best route out of poverty. Children in workless households are five times more likely to be in poverty than those in households where all adults were working. The Welfare Reforms such as the benefit freeze were designed to incentivise parents to choose to move into and progress in work.