During the Conservative Party Conference, I have been tasked with representing the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in my Ministerial capacity. Yesterday, I responded on behalf of the DWP at Liz Kendall MP's Westminster Hall debate on child poverty in Leicester. Poverty in the East Midlands is lower than in 2010 and the latest figures show the proportion of children in workless households is at a record low. However, as far as I am concerned, one child in poverty is one too many.
The way we measured child poverty in the past - based on median income - was deeply flawed. For example, by this measure the number of children in poverty went down significantly during the recent economic recession. That is why new measures have been introduced to focus on the root causes of poverty, chief among them being educational attainment and levels of work within a family.
Other measures introduced by the Government have helped in the fight against child poverty. One crucial example is the introduction of the National Living Wage. This has meant a pay rise for 2.4 million workers and those previously on the minimum wage have seen their pay increase by over £2,750 since April 2016. In addition, an impressive record of job creation has led to an all-time high of around 9 in 10 children living in a home where at least one adult works, taking tens of thousands of children out of poverty. This means there are 687,000 fewer children living in workless households since 2010.
There is still a lot more to do to ensure that no children are living in poverty in our country, and the DWP and I are looking at cross-Government measures and solutions to tackle this.