Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the implications for future advances in social mobility of the finding by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that almost 37 per cent of children will fall below the relative poverty line by 2021.

Employment is key to helping people out of poverty and to make a real and lasting change to the lives of disadvantaged families and children. Our welfare and tax reforms are designed to incentivise employment and to support people to progress in work. Employment is now at near-record levels and the number of children living in a family where no one is working is 608,000 lower than it was in 2010. 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.

The Department does not forecast estimates of low income, but the next HBAI publication for 2016/17 data has been pre-announced and will be published by the end of March 2018. The government is committed to continue to publish this series on an annual basis.