Child Poverty Bill

I thank the Minister for his response and all noble Lords for their contributions to the amendment. The Minister made a point about persistent and grinding poverty. We want to help children brought up in persistent and grinding poverty. As noble Lords know, I am looking forward to our discussions because we want the Bill to capture children in persistent and grinding poverty. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said that when we can find those children, the way that we help them may be radically different from the blanket approaches that one could see with large numbers. When we can isolate the children who are really suffering, we can get effective strategies to help those families. We should worry about this a lot because, in the end, the well-being of the children is probably more important. I was surprised to read Bradshaw’s conclusion about the discrepancy between the poverty rate and the well-being rate. He said that the poverty rate explains only 38 per cent of the variation in well-being. My concern is that it is perfectly possible to achieve the targets we have, yet not shift the well-being figure very much. That is why I raise this issue. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, it may be too ambitious—