To ask the Minister for Communities to detail any assessment his Department has made of the number of working households, who are not in receipt of benefits, but are experiencing financial hardship due to rising living costs.

Whilst I remain committed to ensuring that the Anti-Poverty Strategy is taken forward in the most effective and expeditious way possible, my Department does not hold specific information on households not in receipt of benefits who are experiencing hardship due to rising living costs.

My Department publishes the Northern Ireland Poverty and Income Inequality Report, which presents annual estimates of the proportion of people, children, working-age adults and pensioners in Northern Ireland living in poverty, as well as other statistics on household income and income inequality.

This report uses data from the Northern Ireland Family Resources Survey and includes a range of low-income poverty indicators including relative poverty, absolute poverty, and combined low income and material deprivation.