17. To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make a statement on the methodology his Department uses for estimating levels of child poverty. (165008)

The central measure of the three indicators we use is relative low income. This counts those children living in households below 60 per cent. of contemporary median equivalised household income, before housing costs. Equivalisation takes account of the fact that larger families need more money to maintain the same standard of living as smaller ones. Our data come from the Family Resources Survey.