Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Freud, has made a helpful adjustment to the Bill. I hear what has been said and understand the concerns. I am reminded of the UNICEF report, published I think in 2006, which looked at the 26 developed countries, and in which the UK came last. It was a rich report that looked at many dimensions of child poverty. For instance, it looked at how often children had time to spend with their parents over a meal. It commented in particular that Italy was the country where children spent most time with their parents. It looked at the relationships of children with their parents, and at a range of other issues. One striking thing about the report is that the dimension in which the UK did best was health and safety. There is irony in that. It seems to me—again, the amendment speaks to this—that one problem in our culture is that we are very good at measuring what is concrete, but not very good at being more imaginative and thinking more widely about the emotional needs of children. There is a D H Lawrence story about a young boy who has the ability of forecasting who will win horse races. He rocks on his rocking horse for some time, at the end of which he knows who will win a horse race. He tells his mother which horse will win, and the mother goes off and makes money on the races. He gets quite sick doing this, but carries on: everything is going well because they are making lots of money. This is a caricature of what the Government are seeking to achieve: that in our country, anything that is measurable is worthwhile, while that which is not easily measurable is not. It does credit to the noble Lord, Lord Freud, that he is trying to reach things that are not easily measurable, but which are very important to children. In the recently produced Green Paper on family relationships, the Government have recognised the importance of stable parental relationships in terms of child welfare and child outcomes. This arises from American research which demonstrates that parenting interventions can be very effective, not when they are directed at the parent and child, but when they are directed at the two parents together. This is perhaps obvious to your Lordships, but the stronger the parental relationship, the better the children fare. There is a lot to be said for this amendment. If one is looking for a lever for Government to improve parental relationships, the current proposals in the Children, Schools and Families Bill to introduce personal, social, health and economic education as a statutory part of the curriculum would be one way to encourage more children to avoid teenage pregnancies and to make better decisions about life partners. Their children would therefore have the benefit of growing up in a two-parent family. I know your Lordships will have your own experiences and familiarity with working-class white and black boys, but I can remember working with a young black man several years ago who grew up in a lone parent family. He bewailed the fact that his mother had to work so hard for him and his younger brother because she was bringing them up on her own. Another young white boy at a local primary school would give me all these presents when I was assisting in the classroom and spending time with him. Eventually I met him with his mother and realised he was without a father. It brought home to me the plight of those young boys who really want to have a father but are growing up without one, so they will embrace any young man who is around to fill that vacuum. I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and I hope the Minister can give him some comfort.