MPs debate child poverty

In a Parliamentary debate this week, the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, Stephen Timms, told MPs that the child poverty unit worked across Government departments as the issue covered so many remits.

The debate was opened by Labour MP Kerry McCarthy who questioned the involvement of many Government departments on the child poverty agenda and said they should be focusing on what could be done locally to achieve the child poverty agenda.

Mr Timms noted that the Government was working to empower local government and to improve benefit provision to assist families in poverty. He went on to say that local authorities needed to consider how their policies impacted on whole families and that a number of local area agreements had been created with the Department for Communities and Local Government so that they could implement flexible policies based on local needs. He also highlighted how £125million of funding had been announced for local pilot schemes to combat child poverty.

Mr Timms also discussed the work being done to improve housing and investments in homelessness prevention. He confirmed that more was being done to make people on low incomes aware that they could be eligible for housing benefit and that the provision of benefits was being discussed with HMRC.