Child Poverty Bill

In moving the amendment, I will speak also to Amendments 47, 56 and 76, which I grouped with it in the hope of expediting progress—partly because they are all about the voice of the child. For that reason, I hope that we can polish off this group fairly quickly. We have had a delightful amount of agreement across the Room on the last three amendments and I thank the Minister for adding his name to them. That now means that the Government, the devolved Governments and local authorities all have to speak directly to children in working out their strategies. However, Amendment 18 is about the commission. In another place, the Government introduced an amendment to enable the commission to request the Secretary of State to commission research on its behalf. That will fill in any gaps in knowledge, provide information, develop expertise and help the commission to be able to provide better advice. If the Secretary of State refuses that permission, the Government will have to explain why. All that is very welcome. However, we feel that it must be clear that the commission can call witnesses. In particular, it needs to be able to listen to children and their parents directly. Indeed, it is vital that the commission is obliged to listen to the voice of the child in the same way that the Minister has just agreed that the Government themselves, the devolved Governments and local authorities must. It is inconceivable that the commission could reach conclusions about what advice to give Ministers without consulting children directly. The sorts of people that have been appointed to the commission are the sorts of people who know very well how to consult with children directly. I am puzzled about why there is no mention of a duty to consult children in the section on the commission. Will the terms of reference specify that the commission can and should call on children and their families to provide evidence? Indeed, will the commission have adequate resources to do that? Perhaps the Minister can say so. I beg to move.