Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, I have tabled this amendment in order to highlight the futility of seeking to eradicate child poverty solely through the means of financial transfers. Your Lordships have heard me speak on this before, but I felt that the example of addiction within a household below the poverty margin needed to be raised in particular. During the evidence session in another place, it became apparent that there was a clear philosophical divide between these Benches and the Government on this matter. I entirely agree with what Charlotte Pickles of the Centre for Social Justice said in talking about a parent who is addicted to drugs or alcohol. She said that, "““by skewing a policy response towards increasing benefits to pull that””," family, "““over the poverty threshold, you are not improving that child’s life in any way, shape or form … I … refute the fact that at the moment we have sufficient, or even nearly adequate, services for tackling addiction. Our polling of addicts who say that they want to come off drugs and not be maintained in their addiction shows that we need a different approach to addiction … It is not just about income””.—[Official Report, Commons, Child Poverty Bill Committee, 22/10/09; col. 86.]" This view was entirely rejected by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who seemed to find it almost personally offensive that one might see better uses for taxpayers’ money than pouring it through the hands of an addict straight into the pockets of their supplier or the local off-licence. Surely the Minister would agree with me that raising benefit levels to a family when all disposable income, and much that many of us would probably not consider disposable at all, is already going on the maintenance of an addiction is not going to benefit the child and might actively harm them by ensuring that their parent can afford more time under the influence. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary made the astonishing statement that the services provided by local authorities and the NHS to deal with addictions have no relevance to this Bill. I could not disagree more. It is crucial to the fight against child poverty that ““joined-up government”” becomes more than just a Labour buzzword. Rightly, the Bill identifies local authorities as critical in the delivery of the UK strategy. My amendment would ensure that the Secretary of State properly considered that resources might best be diverted to supporting local authorities’ and healthcare providers’ programmes to tackle addiction. I am thinking in particular of the remarkably successful programme in Ipswich, where the number of young females resorting to prostitution to feed their drug habit has been virtually eradicated—and I use the word ““eradicated”” in its conventional sense. Clearly, where a child has one or more parent with an addiction, we must look at providing financial funding and support through a safe pair of hands. Surely the Minister would agree that the UK strategy must tie in with the work of other departments to ensure that, rather than just throwing cash at the problem, we offer suitable support instead. I beg to move.