Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, I have an amendment in the group and I hope to build on the arguments put forward by the noble Lord. I declare an interest having just agreed to become the patron of Foodbank Wales; I have done so because of the amount of food poverty in Wales. The issue of minimum income standards was previously raised at the Committee stage in another place and it is clear even from the discussion so far that it requires further scrutiny. At that point in the Bill’s passage, the Government explained that they had ruled out minimum income standards because different research methods tend to make different assumptions and that it is difficult to get one answer to the simple and single question of how much income is enough. This response does not justify dodging such a crucial point: namely, how much it costs per week to live healthily in the UK. The Government merely made an obvious methodological point about the nature of research, but this does not dismiss the case for minimum income standards, nor dilute our obligation to answer fundamental questions when devising a child poverty strategy. A recent study by the Rowntree Foundation indicated that while the minimum food standard is £43 per week, unemployment benefit for a single, childless woman under the age of 25 years is only £50.95. Admittedly after 25 years it rises by in the region of £7, but that leaves less than £8 remaining to purchase all the other necessities such as fuel, clothing and so on. In reality, this makes accessing a healthy diet low on the list of an individual’s priorities. Throughout the Committee stage so far, the Committee has continuously returned to the crucial point that the strategy behind the Bill must address the causes of child poverty and not only its symptoms, and the Government have repeatedly acknowledged this as a priority. We have heard the term "cycle of poverty" many times, and yet we continue to shy away from the very axis that accelerates the problem—namely, the health of the mother and the child. The Bill categorises children as "materially deprived" if they cannot form a range of basic activities such as school trips and celebrations on special occasions. How much more fundamental is the right of our children to a healthy diet? Is it not short-sighted to neglect calculating the costs of this? In the time available, I could not do justice to the crucial importance of nutrition during pregnancy and infancy in tackling disadvantage. The noble Lord, Lord Freud, touched on the importance of maternal nutrition, and I should like to elaborate a little further. In brief, it is becoming apparent that low birth weights, of which Britain has the highest rate in western Europe, are associated with poor cognitive abilities and serious brain disorders such as cerebral palsy. I remind the Committee that I come from south Wales, where we have the tragedy of the highest epidemic of spina bifida and anencephaly through folate deficiency. That was due to diet. Since folate supplements have come in, we have seen that drop dramatically. If you do not get diet right in pregnancy, you store up problems that will be there for the whole of the child’s life, from the moment it is born. In 2002, Sir Derek Wanless’s report to the Department of Health, Securing Good Health for the Whole Population, expounded an egalitarian sentiment, harmonious with the sprit of Every Child Matters. He identified birth rate as a pivotal cause of a vicious cycle of poor health; he recognised that the cycle repeats itself from generation to generation and traps communities in poverty and health inequality. The cycle of poverty will remain repetitive and relentless unless we have the courage to tackle its very core and root that out. That is what the amendment seeks to do. By identifying the amount necessary to ensure pregnant women and children have sufficient money to eat properly, my amendment aims to tackle the origins of this crisis in a serious and effective way. A recent article in the Guardian highlighted the issues of debt for many young pregnant women and, against that backdrop, their inability to afford to eat properly. The Minister in another place reminded us that a health and pregnancy grant is available to women from the 25th week of pregnancy, but that is far too late. From the time of conception and in those early phases of cell division, long before you might say that the foetus is medically viable, is when the nutritional influences probably have their major effect. We have to get this dealt with pre-conception, let alone from birth. I anticipate that I shall be reminded that my amendment makes theoretical sense, but we cannot monitor the ways in which pregnant women will spend their money. Admittedly, there is a paucity of empirical data to guide our judgment, but I point the Committee to one study, conducted in Gary, Indiana in the USA between 1970 and 1974, which was published in the Journal of Human Resources and supports this strategy. I also emphasise the importance of educating women, which means girls at school onwards, about the value of a nutritious diet and what it contains. Unless we do that, the policy will not be able to be enhanced. I am proud that the NHS is more than just a faculty. It symbolises Britain’s social democratic conscience and recognises that good health is instrumental to each individual’s chance of prosperity and success. If we had a modern-day Beveridge report in front of us now, child poverty would sadly be one of the five giants. Consequently, having boldly pledged to end child poverty by 2020, we cannot be pusillanimous in our efforts. I have no doubt that addressing the crucial question of what it actually costs for mothers and their children to access a healthy diet among other necessities is pivotal to delivering the promise.