Child Poverty Bill

I shall respond briefly because my Amendment 67 may not be called for a little while. I have an ongoing concern that we have not addressed head-on the problem of poor diet. If women have an inadequate diet in pregnancy and the foetus is deprived, and children have a poor diet, those children are blighted for life. Due to that, I shall certainly return to the matter on Report. I accept fully the Government’s criticism of some aspects of the wording of the amendment but, if we are talking about setting targets against child poverty, I do not see how as a nation we can afford to ignore the importance of adequate nutrition and its impact. We have an enormous problem with childhood obesity in this country. We know the disadvantage at which it puts children and we know that it is linked to inadequate diet. Many children are obese and malnourished. This is at the heart of the issues—