Child Poverty Bill

The noble Lord is right on that point, but one of the other key building blocks in paragraph (c) is, ""health, education, childcare and social services"." If those service areas do not encompass parents, I am not sure what would. As in so many of our debates, no one is saying that these issues are not important to the development of the strategy; the issue is whether the structure of the Bill requires them to be specifically stated. We would say that that is not necessary because they are otherwise encompassed. I hope that I have shown that the Government are committed to continuing to promote increased parental engagement. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and my noble friend Lady Hollis pointed out on Monday that we need to be careful that we continue to focus on the primary aim of the Bill, which is to provide a framework for tackling child poverty. We must try in our debates in Committee not to lose focus. As I have outlined, there are other pieces of legislation, strategies and programmes of work that look at the important issues raised by this amendment. For those reasons, I urge the noble Lord not to press his amendment. I know that he would not do that in the Moses Room, but I hope that he will accept that we are in agreement with the thrust of what he is seeking to achieve.