Social Security Benefits: Poverty
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of poverty among people in receipt of social security; and if she will introduce a statutory poverty reduction target.
Answered by Alison McGovern
Statistics on the number of people living in absolute and relative poverty in the UK are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication at Households below average income: for financial years ending 1995 to 2024 - GOV.UK. Tables giving the percentage of individuals in relative poverty by state support received by the family are published in “table 5.9db” of “workingage-hbai-detalied-breakdown-2023-24-tables”, “table 6.6db” of “pensioners-hbai-detailed-breakdown-2023-24-tables”, and “table 4.6db” of “children-hbai-detailed-breakdown-2023-24-tables”. The latest statistics published on 27 March 2025 are for the financial period 2023/24.
The latest available data can also be found on Stat-Xplore: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. Guidance on how to use it can be found here: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/User-Guide.html.
The Child Poverty Taskforce is continuing its urgent work and is exploring all available levers to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty.
Our metrics must also reflect the experience of poverty in households across the UK and the urgent need to focus on those children experiencing the most severe and acute forms of poverty. The Taskforce will consider how best to measure this as the strategy develops, including through our work on the material deprivation measure following the recent review of the material deprivation survey questions carried out by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Verbatim has judged this answer against the question that was actually asked — answered, partly answered, or evaded. Sign in to see the verdict →