Deprivation/Child Poverty

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification, but disappointed. I thought that perhaps we had made a breakthrough there, but there we go. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) rightly drew attention to the different ways in which we measure child poverty. First, since 1998, 600,000 children have been lifted out of relative poverty in the UK. I am grateful for the opportunity earlier to clarify that that figure has not changed in the past year. Secondly, we have seen a drop in persistent poverty since 1997 from 17 per cent. to 11 per cent. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) rightly drew particular attention to the importance of persistent poverty as a reflection of hardship. There has been an encouraging drop in that regard. The new material deprivation measure, which we have been recording only since 2004-05, has fallen by 200,000 since 2004-05. I noted that the Institute for Fiscal Studies has made a number of points about the material deprivation measure. We shall, of course, listen carefully to points that people make. There is a widely held view, which is reflected in the consultation that we have carried out, that in measuring child poverty there should be some measure of living standards and day-to-day experiences as well as of income—not instead of, but as well as—and the material deprivation measure is an attempt to do that.