Child Poverty Bill

If the hon. Gentleman had been a little more patient, he would have heard me make a similar point. Our strategy needs to be multi-faceted if we are to break into generational cycles of poverty, and so truly end child poverty. That multi-faceted approach is supported by the Bill. The UK strategy will need to meet both purposes set out in clause 8(2). As well as showing how the targets will be met, the strategy must meet the purpose of ensuring, as far as possible, that children in the UK do not experience socio-economic disadvantage. That second purpose ensures that the strategy will be broad in scope and that it will focus on a wide range of policy areas, rather than relying on a narrow range of policies related simply to raising household income through financial support. Moreover, clause 8(5) establishes that the strategy must consider what measures if any ought to be taken across a range of key policy areas. Those building blocks of the strategy have been determined on evidence that shows that those policy areas have the potential to make the biggest impact in tackling the causes and consequences of growing up in income poverty. It follows that amendment 24 is unnecessary, because the strategies will already need to set out the specific actions that need to be taken to meet the targets, and the annual reports will monitor delivery, tracking a wide range of indicators that may change over time, as determined by the needs of the strategy. As well as being unnecessary, amendment 24 is unhelpful and problematic, because it seeks to require the strategy to define causal relationships that in reality are tenuous and difficult to establish. The strategies will review the evidence on the underlying causes of poverty, seeking to establish clear evidence of causal relationships where they exist, but the problem with amendment 24 is that in many cases it is not possible to establish evidence of clear causal relationships. In many cases, the evidence shows that there are strong associations or connections between growing up in relative poverty and material deprivation, and experiencing poor intermediate outcomes in a range of areas, including educational attainment, health and other aspects of well-being. It also shows that there are strong associations between those intermediate outcomes and the risk of experiencing poor final outcomes in adulthood, including the risk of experiencing poverty and material deprivation. However, the causal relationship goes both ways. Income poverty has both direct and indirect effects on other policy areas, including health and education. Defining the causes of poverty, as the amendments would require, is therefore not possible to achieve at present owing to gaps in the evidence base and limitations in the data available. The development of the strategy will involve identifying those groups of children most at risk of being in poverty, including particularly vulnerable groups, and assessing what action needs to be taken to meet all the targets on income poverty and material deprivation. The indicators that should be tracked will change over time, as determined by the needs of the strategy, but our ultimate goal—the ending of child poverty—remains constant. I shall now turn to new clause 3, which was tabled by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire. I understand the need for transparency on progress towards the 2010 target. However, I shall explain why the new clause is unnecessary. Opposition Members have been full of doom and gloom about our prospects for 2010 and achieving those targets—the hon. Gentleman asked a number of questions about where we are and where we think we are going to be in the light of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's announcements. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government previously forecast that measures taken since 2008 would reduce child poverty by a further 500,000 in relative terms, but the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the number is 600,000. The measures that the Chancellor announced earlier today will produce a further reduction of at least 50,000. He announced an extension of free school meals entitlement to primary age children whose parents are on working tax credits, and an increase in child benefit of 1.5 per cent. in April 2010, which is well ahead of what it would be if we had stuck with the indexation in legislation. I contrast that with the freezing of child benefit under the previous Administration, which meant that by 1997 it was lower in real terms than when they took office in 1979.