Child Poverty Bill

I am grateful to the noble Earl for prompting me and I give my apologies to the noble Baroness for not dealing with this point earlier. I could not give an assurance in those terms; I do not think that any Minister could. It depends on the next comprehensive spending assessment and on how we move forward with the Fiscal Responsibility Bill, which is not inconsistent with the provisions of this Bill. Three-year funding for local authorities has been a positive development under this Government. Previously, it was very much more hand to mouth, year by year. However, I recognise the point made by the noble Earl. What is increasingly happening at local authority level is the removal of ring-fenced funding—the Supporting People programme is one example. Removing ring-fencing provides local authorities with greater discretion and the opportunity to innovate on how they deploy their funds. There are interesting pilots called Total Place, which are trying to get to grips with the multiplicity of funding streams going to individual locations to see what better use can be made of those funds. There is one project in my own patch in Luton, so I am close to that. Those opportunities will help to address the concerns of the noble Baroness, which the noble Earl reiterated. However, there is no way that one could guarantee that current levels of funding, in all respects on every programme, would continue as at present. Perhaps I may use this opportunity to pick up on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Freud, about Clause 15. To be clear, the duty to meet the targets is absolute and is not affected by that clause, which simply requires the strategy to meet the 2020 target to take into account the broader economic context. It is about ensuring that the Government meet the targets in a sustainable way that delivers value for money. That can only be sensible and it is the responsible thing to do.