Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, the household below average income data show before and after housing costs across a wide range of tables, and important information is contained in each of those two series. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and the noble Lord, Lord Best, made clear, the key issue is that housing is in extremely short supply in many parts of this country and can be extraordinarily expensive, particularly in the capital. For many households, housing has moved from being an item of choice to being forced expenditure. One can therefore argue that housing can be the lone factor. In other words, it does not follow that we need to look at poverty in the light of people’s costs for childcare, disability and so forth, if we accept this group of amendments. We can obtain vital information about trends when we look at poverty levels after housing costs. It is probably the best proxy to tell us how the poor have fared as a result of housing booms and growing leverage in the economy. It is no accident that the after housing trends for the poor have been worse than the before housing trends in recent years. We have suffered an extraordinary housing boom that was built on unsustainable levels of debt, for which I blame a complacent Government. The effect is that considerably more children are living in poverty on the after housing costs measure than on the before housing costs measure: 4 million, as against 2.9 million, on the latest figures. However, the issue changes when we move from useful information for making measurements to statutory targets, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, pointed out. The amendment is not a switch from before housing costs to after housing costs—the noble Lord, Lord Best, seemed to argue that one was preferable; it is a switch to looking at both of them. In this way, we will end up with a ratchet effect between the two measures. Whichever is the worse will become the target, which is highly likely to fluctuate in the difficult times ahead. For that reason, I do not support the amendment.