§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Chris Pond)Copies of the UK's second National Action Plan (NAP) on Social Inclusion, covering the period 2003–05 have today been placed in the Library.
The Government's commitment to eradicating child poverty and ensuring that everyone in the UK has the opportunity to escape social exclusion is central to its programme.
To achieve this, we need to work effectively with a wide range of organisations across the UK—and with people who are experiencing poverty and social exclusion. The UK Government has made clear its commitment to working with the European Union (EU) to make a decisive impact on poverty across Europe by 2010.
The two-yearly NAPs enable the Government to:
join up action across the UK, encouraging the participation of the voluntary and community sector, 'grassroots' people and all levels of government;identify best practice and assess the effectiveness of our strategy against other EU Member States using commonly agreed indicators; and solearn from what works well both within the UK and across the EU.In preparing the UK's second NAP, published in July 2003, the Government has achieved unprecedented levels of participation in the anti-poverty strategy and a shared understanding of the challenges which will need to be addressed in the coming two years. The NAP also reflects the success of the Government's broader strategies. In particular, macroeconomic stability has generated resources to target investment in the priority areas of health, education, criminal justice, housing and transport;
Overall, there are now over 1.5 million more people in employment than in 1997 and around 350,000 fewer children in workless households. There has been good progress in reducing the numbers below absolute low-income thresholds—around 1.8 million fewer children 19WS and 1.6 million fewer pensioners below the 1996–97, 60 per cent. median income after housing costs threshold held constant in real terms.