Child Poverty Bill

I shall speak to new clauses 1, 2 and 3, and amendments 1 to 20, 23, 24, 33, and 34. New clause 1, which the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) moved, would include in the Bill a target for relative low income measured after housing costs. The consequential amendments are amendments 1 to 20. The new clause would impose a new target that is additional, as he knows, to the relative low income before housing costs target in clause 2 and the other targets in clauses 3 to 5. Whether poverty should be measured before or after housing costs and the impact of housing quality on children's outcomes were debated at some length in Committee. I emphasise that the Government recognise the importance of housing costs to families' disposable incomes and the impact of those costs on their living standards. That is why the Government have placed, and will continue to place, significant focus on the availability of affordable homes. For example, the latest investment of £290 million at the end of November, delivering almost 5,500 affordable homes throughout 149 local authority areas, brought total Government help for house building since June to £1.8 billion.