Child Poverty Bill

Returning to the amendment and taking the point of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, about what we call the black economy, I utterly accept renaming it. Now that he has raised the point, I remember in 1979 having a ferocious debate with the editor of the Financial Times about exactly what we would title a particular article. We ended up with the expression "underground economy", not "black economy". We will go to "informal economy". I regard this as important because it is more than a marginal issue, which is what the Minister said. It is more than marginal to have potentially £140 billion slopping around the economy, unmeasured and unaccounted for. It is very dangerous to have what is now a statutory target in an area where there is such poor definition of funds and income. That is why this is a very dangerous area to ignore. When you are out in the community, everyone knows people who have extra sources of income. If those people are wrongly rewarded for lying—which could be one of the processes—there will, in practice, be a backlash against the whole welfare state. That is the issue.