Child Poverty Bill

I am as relieved as everyone else that we have finally reached Part 2, which I believe that we will consider rather more rapidly than Part 1. As important as it is for central government to be committed to helping deprived children, the success of the UK strategy will rest on how local authorities perform. Indeed, the Bill stands the risk of being drafted backwards. We start with financial targets, which the Minister has admitted are only part of the story and, as he would not admit, are a crude and possibly counterproductive measure of success in some circumstances, as I would argue. We move on to the development of the UK strategy, which at least goes beyond purely financial measures, but remains very broad based and high level. It is not until Clause 19 that we can discuss the organisations to deal with the problems on the ground. The Bill, in fact, makes very few changes here. We have another duty in being imposed on local authorities in Clause 20: that they must, "““make arrangements to promote co-operation””," between themselves and partner authorities. Co-operation is of course important. If the relevant organisations are unclear about who is responsible for what, they are more likely to allow cases to fall between two stools. Are there not already several procedures in place to ensure that organisations working with vulnerable children talk to each other? Does the duty not duplicate existing legislation requiring consultation? My amendments would amend Clause 20 to give local authorities the discretion to identify which of those on the list of partner authorities are particularly relevant to implementing their local strategy and to prioritise establishing effective co-operation arrangements with them. The Bill will be counterproductive if it forces local authorities to waste time box-ticking and paper-pushing to meet the duty, rather than working on cases where government intervention in a child's life is needed. My amendment would allow local authorities to prioritise where they need to improve their engagement with partner authorities to address local concerns without forcing them to waste time going over procedures that are working perfectly well. I hope that the Minister will consider my amendments carefully. I beg to move.