Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, we have tried to explain what we believe it means and the purpose of the use of that term. We have explained that it is not specifically defined in the Bill. My noble friend has rightly said that you have to read the totality of the clause. Clause 8(2) is about the UK strategy and subsection (5) is about preparing that UK strategy. If the Secretary of State fails to prepare a reasonable strategy and, as a result, the targets are not met, one of the sanctions for failure to have an effective strategy is the risk of a judicial review complaint for not meeting the target. Alternatively, there may be grounds for a judicial review for failing to prepare strategies in compliance with Clause 8 or preparing unreasonable strategies as discussed below. I do not believe that it is right to say that use of the expression has no legal teeth. A further sanction, which applies to subsection (2)(a) and (b), is that the annual reports to Parliament must state whether the strategy has been implemented in full and, if not, the reasons why. There is therefore political and public accountability for not implementing the strategy. To say that it is a useless expression, which is the import of the noble Lord’s comments, is unreasonable.