Child Poverty Bill

It is good to see the House filling up for my views on the after housing costs measure of income. We have had an unexpectedly full debate on this group of amendments and one of the key points that the Minister made is that measuring income after housing costs has many flaws. That makes me wonder why her Department publishes so many statistics on that basis every year. It is presumably because they complement the before housing costs measures, because they tell us different things. Each measure has its relative advantages and disadvantages, and that is why the Department publishes both. To pick one for the purpose of legislation seems inconsistent to me. The Minister said that we need international comparisons, and my amendment would not prevent those being included. She says that 10 per cent. is an arbitrary figure—obviously it would be the same for before housing costs—and that it is unobtainable. She seems to think that we will just have to live with 1.3 million children in poverty after housing costs. That is a very depressing prospect for the coming decade.