Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his amendment. We are against the clock here, because we have to conclude by 7.45 pm, so I shall be as brief as I can. In fact, I am helped in that by the powerful contributions we have heard from my noble friend Lady Hollis, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Thomas and Lady Walmsley. They covered much of the ground that the Government would wish to. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, retains his view that this is a wholly unbalanced Bill. I hope that during our proceedings we will convince him otherwise. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Freud, regarding this assertion that the Government have concentrated on tackling poverty through financial means, of course we see the central importance of income, but we have always had a full strategy across the drivers of child poverty. The Child Poverty Review, 2004 and Ending Child Poverty: Everyone’s Business in 2008 have set up the full range of policy instruments required to tackle child poverty, parental employment, childcare, housing, deprivation, skills, education and the progress that the Government have made on those issues. I want to be clear that the Bill is about tackling income poverty, material deprivation and socio-economic disadvantage, and our aim is that children should not live in poverty in the UK or suffer the effects of wider socio-economic disadvantage. Ensuring a focus on income and material deprivation is central to that aim, but so is taking action beyond financial poverty. There is overwhelming evidence of the impact that income poverty has on children’s lives in terms of both their experiences now and their chances in the future. Income poverty blights children’s lives, it impacts on their education, their health, their social lives and relationships with their parents—the noble Lord touches upon some of these issues in his amendment; some of them he does not—and it impacts on their future life chances. Having this focus on income targets, however, does not mean that we are not alive to and aware of the drivers of poverty that need to be addressed to meet the ultimate goals of reducing poverty and deprivation. The building blocks stated in the Bill make clear the range of areas that need to be addressed as the drivers of poverty. It is important that any progressive Government tackle the broad range of issues and policy areas that are related to poverty. Any effective strategy to meet the income targets will need to look at tackling the causes of poverty. During the oral evidence session, Donald Hirsch gave the example of somebody who is currently in school and who might in 10 years’ time be a parent living in poverty if they do not get good enough educational qualifications. We need measures to ensure that that person, who has a disadvantaged upbringing themselves, achieves better at school in order to fulfil the income targets. Our strategy needs to be multifaceted if we are to break intergenerational cycles of poverty and so truly end child poverty. This multifaceted approach is supported by the provisions in the Bill. The UK strategy will need to meet both the purposes set out in Clause 8(2) and show how the targets will be met. Clause 8(2)(b) requires the strategy to meet the purpose of ensuring as far as possible that children in the UK do not experience socioeconomic disadvantage. Clause 8(5) requires the strategy to consider what measures, if any, ought to be taken across a range of key policy areas. These building blocks have been determined through the analysis of evidence that shows that they have the potential to make the biggest impact in tackling the causes and consequences of growing up in socio-economic disadvantage. In preparation for the first child poverty strategy, we are carrying out a thorough review of the evidence base to help us understand causal pathways and identify how different sets of policies can contribute to the 2020 target. In doing so, we are considering relevant data and statistics, including information around workless households and parental skill levels, as the amendment suggests. The amendments proposed by the noble Lord are not necessary or helpful. The Bill requires strategies to set out the specific actions that need to be taken across this full range of areas to meet the targets and ensure that children do not experience socio-economic disadvantage. It is for the annual reports to monitor progress on these actions. The appropriate monitoring tools to assess the impact that they will have on progress will need to be established alongside the strategy development. I do not wish to imply that the issues raised by the noble Lord are not important. I have already mentioned the importance of educational attainment; in addition, we are clear that looking at families where persistent unemployment or low skills are an issue will need to be part of an effective strategy that ensures that families are in work that pays. However, we need to be careful not to confuse causation with correlation—a point which the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, made very effectively. As we said at Second Reading, evidence suggests that although child poverty is associated with family breakdown, there is no clear causal link. The high level of worklessness among lone parents is what increases the risk of poverty for children in lone-parent families. Lone parents in work are at a lower risk of poverty than are many other working families. To paraphrase the speech given by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, at Second Reading, the myth that single parenthood leads to child poverty was exploded in the oral evidence sessions in the other place. Why are there more single parents in Denmark, yet lower rates of child poverty? We must be careful about how we use statistics. It is also important to remember that nearly two-thirds of children in relatively low-income households live in families with couples. Amendment 49 proposes that, to inform their child poverty strategy, the Government collect data on households with parents who are married, in a civil partnership or in a long-term relationship, and households in which one or more parent is addicted to drugs, alcohol or gambling. I understand that the Office for National Statistics collects information on marital status; my noble friend Lady Hollis confirmed that. However, the causal link between this information and child poverty statistics is not clear cut. I imagine that information on levels of drug, alcohol and gambling addiction would be rather harder to obtain. It is not clear, for example, at what point a habit becomes an addiction, or indeed the extent to which this impacts on household income or on children’s well-being. I therefore question whether the information listed here is necessarily the most useful data on which to draw when preparing a child poverty strategy, and indeed whether it is appropriate to specify in legislation that such data are collected as opposed to other data on the drivers of poverty. Finally, the role of the commission is to advise on the development of the strategy, and the Government must have regard to its advice. It is important that the accountability for setting targets and monitoring progress remains with Ministers and Parliament rather than with an unelected body. The commission will bring a wealth of experience and knowledge of the area and will be able to advise the Government on areas on which it believes an effective child poverty strategy should focus. Trying to second-guess its work should not be our aim for the Bill. Having heard that explanation and the powerful contributions from other noble Lords and noble Baronesses, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.