Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to support lone-parent families living in poverty; and in particular, to tackle (1) high housing costs, (2) low-paid work, and (3) cuts to benefits and tax credits.

There is clear evidence that work offers the best opportunity for families to move out of poverty and towards financial independence. Children of lone parent workless families are around 4 times more likely to be in poverty than those where their parent works full time. There are now over 1.2 million lone parents in work and this Government has introduced a number of changes to help lone parents address the challenges they face. Working parents on Universal Credit can have up to 85% of their childcare costs reimbursed – worth up to £1,108 per month for someone with two or more children. We have also introduced additional flexibility on support for up front childcare costs, increased work allowances and doubled free childcare available to working parents of 3 and 4 year olds to 30 hours per week. People on Universal Credit who earn above £542 a month are exempt from the benefit cap, and lone parents need to work just 16 hours a week to be eligible for Working Tax Credits and be exempt from the benefit cap.

This Government has introduced the National Living Wage which will increase again to £8.21 from April 2019. This is expected to benefit up to 2.4m people with the rise this April increasing a full-time worker’s annual pay by over £2,750 since its introduction. Our tax changes will make basic rate tax payers £1,075 better off in 2018-19 than in 2010-11. And we have provided around £1billion in Discretionary Housing Payment funding since 2011, enabling local authorities to protect the most vulnerable claimants