Child Poverty Bill

My hon. Friend is right. The Sure Start programme is hugely important in providing opportunities for young people and support for their families. It can help parents in a child's early years, which can be a vulnerable time for families, when they want and need more support. Sure Start has proved to be an excellent way to provide that support. That is why it is not enough simply to back the Bill—one also has to back the means to deliver it. That includes the Sure Start scheme and not cutting it, as Conservative Members would do. If they are serious about supporting the Bill, I challenge them to say that they support the £5 billion investment to help the unemployed and the £1 billion for the future jobs fund to guarantee young people a job rather than leaving them in long-term unemployment. I challenge them to guarantee now that they will not cut the Sure Start programme, which provides so much support for young people throughout the country and helps to tackle child poverty, too. Conservative Members say that they care about child poverty, but they cannot will the ends and cut the means. The Labour Government are serious about cutting child poverty and the Bill sets out our determination to go further. We are determined to help more parents into work and to get the skills and training they need for well-paid jobs to support children and families as they grow, while also ensuring that work is family friendly so that parents can combine employment and parental responsibilities. Today, we are announcing more support to help parents hit by the global credit crunch. We know that parents are still losing jobs because of the worldwide recession, but often second earners do not go to the jobcentre for help if their partner is still in work. Yet that extra cash from their part-time or full-time jobs could be vital to help to pay the mortgage or keep the family out of poverty. Indeed, more than 100,000 children could be lifted out of poverty if more second earners worked part time or full time as the children get older. That is why we must do more to help second earners who are affected by the recession, and why we are announcing today a further £10 million to help working mothers who are affected by the recession and help more parents into work. Those funds will be targeted at 25 local authority areas to help to set up job clubs in schools to advise parents on getting access to training, finding work or setting up small businesses. Tackling child poverty is also about acting across the board to ensure that children do not get left behind: from one-to-one tuition to free fruit for primary school children; from the work of neighbourhood police with troubled teenagers to the decent homes programme to put central heating into family homes. Tackling child poverty is everyone's business and that is why the Bill is so important. The measure requires the Government to work with the devolved Administrations, local councils, the police, the NHS and organisations throughout the country to tackle child poverty in each and every community. It requires every area to set out its own local strategy to tackle child poverty, as well as the Government to set out the national strategy. It establishes a commission of experts to advise us and help drive us forward. It will force Governments to come back to Parliament time and again to demonstrate the progress being made. It ultimately means that the Government will be at risk of action in the courts if they fail. We are considering a bold Bill, which sets out a radical vision of a fairer society, and a Labour vision of a fairer society. Whereas the Tories doubled child poverty, we are determined to end it. Whereas we want to cut child poverty, they want to cut children's services. Whereas we want to help today's parents, they want to cut the help they need to get back to work. Our priority is to tackle the inequality that prevents our children from getting a fair chance in life, and theirs is to widen inequality by cutting inheritance tax for millionaires. I urge the whole House to back this Bill and to back the long-term measures that are needed to make it a reality. I commend the Bill to the House.