Chloe Smith corrected a written answer on Northern Ireland Office: Families

8 January 2018 · Commons written answer · Northern Ireland Office

Fiona Bruce (Conservative, Congleton) asked written question 119120 on 12 December 2017. Chloe Smith answered on 22 December 2017 for the Northern Ireland Office, and Chloe Smith corrected the answer on 8 January 2018. The corrected text adds the figures 31,000, £600, which the original did not give. Altogether 166 words differ between the two versions.

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, pursuant to the Answer of 30 November 2017 to Question HL3576, what steps his Department is taking to strengthen families.

Original and corrected answer

Struck through: original only. Bold: correction only.

Original	Corrected
~~It is our assessment that no legislation taken forward by~~ the Northern Ireland ~~Office since August 2014 has required~~ the ~~application~~ of the ~~Family Test by~~ the UK Government. The Government is committed to ~~supporting families. To achieve this,~~ in 2014 we introduced the Family Test, which aims to ensure that impacts on family relationships and functioning are recognised early on during the process of policy development and help inform the policy decisions made by Ministers. The Family Test was not designed to be a ‘tick-box’ exercise, and as such there is no requirement for departments to publish the results of assessments made under the Family Test.	Many of the policy areas linked to strengthening families in Northern Ireland are devolved matters. The UK Government is, though, helping families with the everyday cost of living by keeping taxes low, including taking 31,000 people in Northern Ireland out of paying income tax altogether (compared to 2015-16), freezing fuel duty for the eight successive year and increasing the National Living Wage again from April 2018, delivering a £600 annual pay-rise to full-time workers in Northern Ireland.

Original

Corrected

~~It is our assessment that no legislation taken forward by~~ the Northern Ireland ~~Office since August 2014 has required~~ the ~~application~~ of the ~~Family Test by~~ the UK Government.
The Government is committed to ~~supporting families. To achieve this,~~ in 2014 we introduced the Family Test, which aims to ensure that impacts on family relationships and functioning are recognised early on during the process of policy development and help inform the policy decisions made by Ministers. The Family Test was not designed to be a ‘tick-box’ exercise, and as such there is no requirement for departments to publish the results of assessments made under the Family Test.

Many of the policy areas linked to strengthening families in Northern Ireland are devolved matters. The UK Government is, though, helping families with the everyday cost of living by keeping taxes low, including taking 31,000 people in Northern Ireland out of paying income tax altogether (compared to 2015-16), freezing fuel duty for the eight successive year and increasing the National Living Wage again from April 2018, delivering a £600 annual pay-rise to full-time workers in Northern Ireland.

The question and answer on the Parliament website.

Receipt

Read from	https://questions-statements-api.parliament.uk/api/writtenquestions/questions/805449?expandMember=true
Date read	15 October 2026
SHA-256	`e9bc62298fca8ae7df048155b5d6f2e8840a744639767c5c3d2c56832e223ad5`