Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans he has to introduce a child poverty strategy for 2018 to 2021.

Tackling child poverty and disadvantage is a priority for this government. To do this requires an approach that goes beyond the safety net of the welfare state to tackle the root causes of poverty and disadvantage. This is why the income-related targets and the requirement to publish a child poverty strategy set out in the Child Poverty Act 2010 have been repealed. In their place, we have introduced statutory measures to drive action on parental worklessness and children’s educational attainment – the two areas that we know can make the biggest difference to disadvantaged children.

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. It introduced seven non-statutory indicators and underlying measures to track progress in other areas, such as parental conflict, problem debt and homelessness, that are important in tackling the disadvantages that can affect families’ and children’s outcomes.

The Government has a statutory duty to report annually to Parliament on parental worklessness and children’s education attainment. The latest data on the non-statutory indicators will also be published each year.