Child Poverty Bill

I do not think that there will be a real-terms cut in the following year as the hon. Gentleman suggests. I will write to him on that point. I turn now to the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris). Amendment 33 would add a further regulation-making power to clause 6, enabling the Secretary of State to make regulations setting out the circumstances in which a child living in "communal accommodation" may be regarded as living in a qualifying household. That came out of the report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which the hon. Gentleman is a member. I would like to make it very clear that our goal is to eradicate poverty for all children: the framework that the Bill establishes for achieving that goal—using national child poverty strategies and duties on local government—applies to all children in the UK. To ensure accountability for and progress towards the goal, clauses 2 to 5 define targets for a range of poverty indicators. As I am sure hon. Members appreciate, those targets will be effective only if progress towards them is measurable. That is why they do not apply to children who are not covered by the surveys that we use to measure poverty. Targets for those children would not be measurable, and therefore would be an ineffective way to ensure that their experiences of poverty are tackled. The Bill therefore sets out that the targets apply only to children living in "qualifying households". For many children living in communal establishments, the concept of household income is simply inapplicable. However, we have other policies to address the well-being of those children. For example, in residential care homes, minimum requirements include the provision of healthy meals, clothes and sufficient financial resources. I am concerned to satisfy the hon. Gentleman's concerns, because these issues are especially important. The Joint Committee on Human Rights said that the targets discriminate against children not living in qualifying households. In fact, the targets do not discriminate, as only actions can discriminate. He is making a jump in logic and setting up a situation that assumes that the policy that flows from the targets will be discriminatory. That is a mistake and that is why, with the reassurance that the objectives apply to all children, I hope that he will not press his amendments. I hope that other hon. Members also will not press their amendments.