Children: Poverty

(asked on 11th May 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce and eliminate child poverty in the United Kingdom.


This question was answered on 25th May 2021

This Government is wholly committed to tackling child poverty. Throughout the pandemic, our priority has been to protect family incomes by spending £407 billion to protect jobs, keep businesses afloat and help families get by. Including spending an additional £7.4 billion last year to strengthen the welfare system for those most in need, taking our total expenditure on welfare support for people of working age to an estimated £112bn in 2020/21.

In December 2020 we introduced our Covid Winter Grant Scheme providing funding to Local Authorities in England to enable them to support people with food and essential utility bills during the coldest months. It will now run to the 20th June as the Covid Local Support Grant, with a total investment of £269m.

As the economy recovers, our ambition is to help parents move into and progress in work as quickly as possible based on clear evidence around the importance of parental employment, particularly where it is full-time, in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty. We are investing over £30 billion in our ambitious Plan for Jobs which is already delivering for people of all ages right across the country.

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