Child Poverty Bill

I will not shelter behind hypotheticals. I will not just say "if" and "if" and "if", which the Minister’s question does. Clearly one needs to measure performance. The Government have four targets in the Bill. We are not absolutely happy with the financial measures and we have tabled a lot of amendments to probe them. We accept that there need to be financial measures, but whether we need to look at improving the financial targets depends on the extent to which the Government respond to some of the concerns about the shape of them. I am not in a position at this stage to say whether we would change anything that comes through this process. I am trying to give the Minister an honest direction of travel without sheltering behind easy excuses. On the financial targets in particular, we have put down an amendment that tries to get at the absolute levels of persistent poverty, which we do not think are satisfactorily covered in the four measures in the Bill. There are some real improvements that we would like to put in regarding how one measures poverty. We have put them in at this stage as an extra, but when we come to discuss them we may decide that they could be a substitute. I go back to Amendment 1. I want to talk about what has been happening with regard to poverty. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for pulling us back to the core issue. Something odd has gone on with child poverty in what should have been an easy period. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s reference to the excellent IFS report on this. The report explained why the improvement in child poverty rates did not continue, but it did not explain why it came to a full stop. I should like to make a counter point by referring to the Rowntree report Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion, which takes a series of data on home repossessions. It states: ""One example is home repossessions which at an annual rate are back at the 1993 level but which, more importantly here, is yet another series that reached its low point back in 2004, since when it has climbed again … The extent to which 2004 marks a turning point in quite a lot of the statistics presented here is worthy of attention in its own right"." The IFS report, excellent as it is, deals with the financial aspects and not with a series of measurements that all reflect a deterioration in or at least a flattening out of the improvements for the poor. The final point that I want to make, and again I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for reinforcing it, is that it is not entirely satisfactory for the Government to shelter behind the technical point of three months and whether data will be available. If the exact timing is a genuine issue, clearly it is something to look at. We will come back to the issue at a later stage, but for the time being I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 1 withdrawn. Clause 1 : Duty of Secretary of State to ensure that targets are met Amendment 2 Clause 1 : Duty of Secretary of State to ensure that targets are met Amendment 2 Moved by