Child Poverty Bill

I thank the Minister for giving way. I just want to make clear what I am worrying about here. I am concerned about a process that says we have got to hit our child poverty targets. That is pushed to the extent that it is done through income transfers towards child benefit and so on, and thus to households with children. That leaves singles such as NEETs, who we are very worried about and who have just been children, to come out and be plunged to 22 per cent below the poverty line, whereas if they have a single parent they would be 4 per cent below it. I am worried that we are going to create peculiar poverty effects among the poor as a whole in our efforts, as the Rowntree Foundation said, to look after child poverty as cheaply as possible.