Child Poverty Bill

We understand exactly why the Official Opposition have tabled the amendment. It was a theme running through the proceedings in another place that we should measure child poverty not just in terms of money, but with a much wider perspective. A child’s well-being is arguably the most important thing of all, even though it is very difficult to measure. We shall be discussing later amendments that address this very matter. It is shameful that this country is ranked 21st out of 25 EU countries, and was actually ranked last in the UNICEF well-being index in 2007, on child well-being. After all, the phrase "poor but happy" is shorthand used by adults when remembering their childhood—particularly when they are on "Desert Island Discs". I have a lot of sympathy with the whole notion of non-financial targets, although we must be hard-headed and recognise, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said, that income transfers must not be relegated to below non-financial targets in the Bill. It is not entirely clear, as my noble friend Lady Walmsley, said, why these targets have been chosen in the amendment, and any data on them would surely be difficult to collect. The first problem is with proposed new paragraph (a). What constitutes a long-term relationship? How would the figure be collected? If someone is asked, "Are you in a long-term relationship?", the answer might be, "I hope so", but for some people that might be only 10 months, while for others it would be 10 years. After all, many long-term relationships last longer than many marriages. We should not forget that more than half of poor children are in two-parent, not one-parent, families. Then there is proposed new paragraph (c), which, as my noble friend Lady Walmsley said, is very difficult. It talks about households where one or more parent is addicted to drugs, alcohol or gambling. What about addiction to cigarettes, which must make a terrible hole in a family’s budget, or to compulsive shopping? This is quite likely to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and land a family, already struggling with household bills, in debt. As my noble friend said, there is no mention of domestic violence, but we know that that is very bad for children. We can all think of things to put in this kind of list. Either we should have an exhaustive list or no list at all, and leave it to the commission to come up with some research, if it thinks that would be helpful. Presumably the purpose of this proposed new clause is to enable strategies to be developed to address each of these targets. We know, for example, of the Official Opposition's plans for a married couple's tax allowance, which we do not happen to agree with. Anyway, how would the noble Lord, Lord Freud, try to persuade couples to get married? Surely he is not suggesting that couples would decide to do that simply because of the tax allowance. What about the rest? If it was discovered that there was even more addiction than previously thought, would a future Government make sure that there were sufficient effective treatment centres around the country to cope with demand? Or would they have another go at trying to make treatment compulsory by sanctioning JSA? When this Government tried to make drug treatment compulsory for those receiving JSA, there was an outcry on the grounds that compulsion does not work, and the Government did not even try to make treatment for alcoholics compulsory. There are real problems with collecting this kind of data, although I understand why the amendment has been tabled and I welcome the debate.