Child Poverty Bill

Issues around the definition of poverty, hardship and material deprivation are interesting points and doubtless we will cover them during our deliberations. Four targets are set down in the Bill, three of which are entirely income-related. There is the persistent poverty target, which looks at a collection of periods during which, on an income measure, people are treated as being in poverty. Then there are the absolute low-income target and the relative low-income target, but there is also the combined low-income and material deprivation target, which looks at wider factors. I stress, though, that that is only the issue of measurement and targets, which has to sit alongside the requirements under the Bill to bring forward strategies to tackle socio-economic disadvantage for every child in the UK. That is a core part of the Bill, involving local authorities. If it were only about targets and nothing else, it would not be the right way to proceed—I am sure that we would have agreement on that. It is more fundamental than that, though; we will come on to this in subsequent deliberations, but it is about issues around the family, worklessness, health and educational opportunities as well.