Child Poverty Bill

Obviously, a lot will depend on the exact methodology of the survey. There are permanent local authority Traveller sites in my constituency where the residents are on the electoral register, so they would be included, but I accept the general point. The hon. Lady is right: there is a risk that some of the most vulnerable children would be under-represented. As I think has already been pointed out in the debate, the issue is not just about cash, but dealing with financial hardship and pressures on families will certainly help. That is one of the causative factors in family breakdown—to return to the point made by the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) about the impact of family breakdown. When people go to bed every night worried about paying the bills, relationships come under pressure. Tackling that problem might be one of the most practical things we could do to support couples in staying together. The hon. Gentleman suggested that we put something about marriage or parents in the Bill. I am not sure that we need to write anything explicitly in the Bill—that we need to legislate—but there are a lot of policies that might address that point, en route to delivering the child poverty goal. In the big picture, we have not so far dwelt enough on the get-out clause: clause 15. I do not think the shadow Secretary of State mentioned it—probably because she hopes to invoke it. The idea that the Government might say, "Well, child poverty is terrible, but we are broke," really would cause fundamental doubt about the whole Bill.