Child Poverty Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr. Reed), who reminds us, in this discussion of statistics and targets, about the human face of child poverty and the fact that tackling child poverty is a cause, not simply yet another benchmark, target or box-ticking exercise. His perspective is very welcome and his commitment to action in his constituency is impressive. I welcome the Bill. I sometimes tend to be slightly churlish in response to Government Bills, but I unreservedly welcome the fact that this one contains a commitment to tackling child poverty. At Prime Minister's questions last week, the Prime Minister talked about abolishing child poverty. I think that the House would recognise that that is not what this Bill sets as its target; it sets a target of having fewer than 10 per cent. of children living in relative poverty—by my maths, that still works out as 1 million children. The common understanding among the public of "abolishing" child poverty would not be that 1 million children are left in poverty. I hope that the Government and the Ministers present today will reflect on how they describe this Bill, because there is a danger of a noble end being oversold—Governments of all sides have a tendency to do that. If the aim is presented as the abolition of child poverty and a future Government subsequently pat themselves on the back because only 1 million children are in poverty, the public would be justified in thinking that that was not quite what they had in mind. I hope that Ministers will be more realistic about what this Government seek to achieve through the Bill, but I welcome an objective of this sort and a process for monitoring progress towards it.