Deprivation/Child Poverty

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Ongoing advice is important, especially on things like managing debt and managing benefits. The subject has been touched upon, but there are also problems with the administration of housing benefit and tax credits. As constituency MPs, we all know of people who have been billed the wrong amount for electricity, or who have similar problems. Having someone available to give guidance is important, because small things like that can mean that being in work is not sustainable. It might not even be the financial impact; the stress caused by trying to juggle and deal with the various agencies may be another factor. It is generally accepted that all political parties are signed up to the agenda. I hope that we will hear from the Liberal Democrat and Conservative spokesmen not only what they believe the Government should be doing but what their parties will do. In particular, I would be pleased to hear from the Conservative spokesman what his party means by an ““aspiration”” to abolish child poverty and how that differs from a target or commitment. The Opposition have been wary of state intervention to tackle poverty—measures such as tax credits, the minimum wage and the other tools that we use to fulfil our aspiration of meeting the 2010 and 2020 targets. If the Conservative party believes in state intervention, I would be interested to hear what form it will take. The party leader, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), has said that the Conservatives will be judged on how they tackle poverty, but many voters would like to make that judgment before the next election rather than having to wait until afterwards before getting a glimpse of the party's policies. At the moment, all that we have to rely upon is one stark statistic, which has already been quoted. It is that between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s, the proportion of children living in households on less than 60 per cent. of the median income more than doubled. As some hon. Members have said, it is disappointing that the Government have so far managed to lift only 600,000 children out of poverty, but I have been told by the various organisations involved in the End Child Poverty coalition that if the Government had not introduced the measures that they have, another 1.7 million children would be living in poverty. The number would not have remained static; even more children would be affected. I look forward to hearing from the Liberal Democrat and Conservative spokespeople, and the Minister, how we can achieve our targets.