Peers vote to keep income-related poverty measurement

House of Lords votes in favour of retaining income-related child poverty measures.

Responding to the House of Lords’ vote in favour of retaining income-related child poverty measures, Director of Policy Dalia Ben-Galim said: “Gingerbread is delighted that the House of Lords last night voted against the government’s plans to scrap income-related poverty measures. [1]

“A staggering 3.7m children currently live below the poverty line, 450,000 of which are in working single parent households [2]. Addressing the root causes of that should be uppermost in the government’s mind, rather than attempting to wash its hands by changing the poverty criteria.

“Gingerbread hopes the government will now take note of last night’s vote and continue reporting on how much money families have when looking at child poverty.” [3]

ENDS

Notes to editors

[1] The House of Lords voted in favour of reporting on child poverty by 290 to 198.

[2] Households Below Average Income: 1994/1995 to 2013/2014, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-below-average-income-19941995-to-20132014

[3] Gingerbread is part of the End Child Poverty coalition, whose campaign to challenge the Government’s plans can be found here: http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/now-you-see-them/