Deprivation/Child Poverty

I begin by welcoming the report, which has given us the opportunity to have this useful and interesting debate. I congratulate the Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney), and I thank the Select Committee for its work and for the attention that it rightly focused on this important subject. I am sorry that one or two Members suggested that they thought the Government's response was somewhat complacent. I assure the Committee and the House that that certainly was not intended, and that there is absolutely no sense of complacency on my part or on the part of any of my colleagues about the scale of the challenge that we face and the importance of achieving the targets that we have set. Those targets have been agreed across the House this afternoon. It is time to see the back of child poverty. It has no place in a prosperous modern society. We need every child to grow up enjoying experiences and opportunities that will enable them to fulfil their potential later in life. Organisations such as the Child Poverty Action Group, which was referred to, warmly welcomed our substantial commitment to tackling child poverty. A financial commitment of £1 billion or so was made recently. I thought it a little unfair, after that big commitment, which was widely welcomed, to complain that there were no further announcements in the Government's response, but that is by the by. It is clear from the scale of the commitment that we made recently, at a time of substantial fiscal pressure, just how firmly committed the Government are to achieving their targets. I say to the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) that I certainly do not regret the fact that the Treasury has the lead on this matter. I have no doubt at all that that is part of the reason why in the Budget we were able to go so far in the direction that people have been calling for in this debate. That underlines the Government's commitment, and that is where the matter sits.