Tomorrow's Budget will contain practical measures that have come out of the ministerial committee on poverty, which was set up as part of the confidence and supply agreement with the Maori Party.
The committee has been assessing the report of a special advisory group on child poverty set up by the Children's Commissioner.
He said the Budget would outline changes to the distribution of social housing and confirmed there would be more measures to address housing affordability, besides the accord the Government signed last week with the Auckland Council on land supply.
"We don't believe there is a solution to poverty in general," he told reporters at Parliament, "so I wouldn't expect any large-scale intervention."
Mr English said the Government already spent hundreds of millions on disadvantaged families and it had undermined the ability of families to take responsibility for themselves.