Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, at the risk of prolonging a discussion that at times does not seem to have exact relevance to the wording of the amendment, let me say that from my own experience the whole question of how we define poverty and deprivation in relation to children covers such a vast area of concerns that this discussion is becoming almost ethereal. A few minutes ago, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, rightly referred to the fact that there is disparity between geographical areas of the United Kingdom—what would apply in County Antrim would not apply in the streets of Glasgow, and so on. It is equally true—and I feel that this will fast become the real problem in this entire discussion, even when we are looking at future amendments in this Committee—that unless we have a clearer notion of what contributes to the basics in a child’s life, irrespective of where that child lives, we are going to get into all sorts of difficulties, which will find their way into the discussion of legislation. Speaking again from my experience of over 43 years of dealing with the pastoral needs of families in my home country, I assure the Committee that we are just scratching the surface of the problem. I have listened carefully to what your Lordships have said today. If I may say so, my concern deepens with each speech that I have listened to. What I believe the Government are attempting to do in this Bill has my wholehearted support. However, I do not see the difficulty as lying in the niceties of words or the niceties of various attempts to avoid issues. The real difficulty that we face is in determining what constitutes the human rights of a child and what constitutes a penalty in the life of a child. Therefore, I make a plea at this stage, if I may presume to do so, that we should be careful that we do not get our thoughts hung on one attempt to define the poverty of children. So much contributes to it. The Minister sensed this in his introduction and covered it, but we lost sight of it when we heard various details that subsequently came up. I hope that I am not wrong in that. The longer our debate goes on, particularly in another place, there will be added confusion due to the simple fact that we have failed to understand that there is no simple, solitary, unitary approach to what constitutes the penalty in the life of a child.