§ 23. Kali MountfordTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what progress has been made to relieve child poverty since 1997. [85272]
§ Dawn PrimaroloThe Government have a PSA target to reduce by a quarter the number of children in low-income households by a quarter by 2004–05, as a contribution towards the broader target of halving child poverty by 2010 and eradicating it by 2020. Low-income households are defined as those with less than 60 per cent. of contemporary median income. Progress will be reported against the 1998–99 baseline figures of 3.1 children in low-income households before housing costs, and 4.2 million after housing costs.
By 2000–01 the number of children in low-income households had fallen by 300,000 after housing costs and by 400,000 before housing costs. This means that we are a third of the way to reaching the 2004 PSA target in a third of the time.
Low income is of course central to poverty. But poverty is a complex, multi-dimensional issue, affecting many other aspects of children's lives, including health, housing, the quality of their environment and opportunities to learn. In April 2002 the Government launched a consultation exercise to decide the best way to measure poverty in the long-term, to help target policies and enable the Government to be held to account over their long-term targets. Results will be published by spring 2003.