Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, it is my role in life to try and comfort the noble Lord, Lord Freud. I thank him for his amendment and noble Lords who have joined in this debate. As he recognised, the themes raised by the amendment were debated at great length in Grand Committee. I do not agree with the noble Lord’s repeated assertion that the Bill is only or primarily concerned with income poverty and financial transfers. This Bill is actually focused on tackling income poverty, material deprivation and socio-economic disadvantage. He made several references, citing the role of the Treasury in all this in support of his proposition. He quoted Nick Macpherson speaking before the Select Committee about the PSA targets sitting with HMT because it has responsibility for financial support but, as the noble Lord acknowledged, that comment was made in relation to the 2010 PSA target. The situation is different in regard to the 2020 goal and the targets in the Bill. The levers to address this are no longer just about income transfers; they are more far-reaching, which is why we list a range of levers on building blocks in Clause 8 on the strategy. They can hardly be described as buried in the back of the Bill. Our aims are that children in the UK should not live in poverty and suffer the effects of wider socio-economic disadvantage. Ensuring a focus on income and material deprivation is central to that, but so is taking action beyond financial poverty. Having a set of income targets to measure progress and define success does not mean that we are not aware of the drivers of poverty that need to be addressed to meet the goals in this Bill. They will be addressed through the child poverty strategy. Our strategy needs to be multifaceted if we are to break intergenerational cycles of poverty and so truly end child poverty. The UK strategy will need to meet both the purposes set out in Clause 8(2), and Clause 8(5) requires the strategy to consider what measures, if any, ought to be taken across a range of key policy areas. Those building blocks have been determined through analysis of evidence that shows that they have the potential to make the biggest impact in tackling the causes and consequences of growing up in socio-economic disadvantage. Turning to the four elements listed in the amendment, the Government agree, as did the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that education and employment are crucial aspects in any effort to tackle child poverty, which is why they are included in the building blocks in Clause 8(5). We also recognise that support for parents and better parenting skills are important. Indeed, shortly, we will be moving a government amendment to add a new building block to Clause 8(5) to address the matter of supporting parents—in response to the tenor of the debate that we had in Committee. We take issues of addiction very seriously. However, we consider that that is already covered by the existing building blocks, such as health, education and social services. I hope that I have made it clear that there is no need for the amendment, as the Bill already covers most of those matters. I agree again, and as usual, with my noble friend Lady Hollis: if we go down the route of having a list of all the things that we think ought to be covered, it will be never-ending. However, I contend that there is no firm evidence that family breakdown or addiction constitute the main drivers of poverty. Indeed, there was much debate about the difference between correlation and causation, which I do not want to reopen now; we had a good go at that in Committee. In Committee, noble Lords queried what the policy responses to targets on addiction and family breakdown might be; we heard that again this afternoon. The question posed by my noble friend was absolutely right: how are you going to go about measuring the things that you want to? We wonder how the noble Lord would go about ensuring that adults lived only in couples and whether re-establishing the married couple's allowance may be linked to that. It would do little to help the poorest, but it would certainly line the pockets of the richer. On addiction, the noble Lord seems to be proposing withholding financial provision to households where one or more parents have an addiction. That would increase the risk of poverty for children in that household, so I would not support it. The noble Lord has repeatedly challenged the accuracy of the data underpinning the income targets in the Bill. I question the accuracy of any data on addiction or family breakdown. Both issues would be difficult to address using a survey methodology, so it would be difficult to produce robust national estimates to inform statutory targets. Such data are also unlikely to be as rigorous as the ONS-approved HBAI data that the Government use for the targets in the Bill. I am surprised that the noble Lord would want the Government to collect, store and use such sensitive personal data on individual parents. I think that the noble Lord acknowledged that our approach is to have the Treasury, DCSF and DWP heavily engaged. I know, as does the noble Lord from his previous experience, the strength of the DWP and its commitment to helping people to get closer to and into the labour market. Helping people into sustainable work in which they can flourish will be key to tackling child poverty. The noble Lord pressed me on issues about stable relationships. As I said, we will move an amendment to add a building block about support for parents generally. We agree that stable family relationships are important in helping to nurture young people. Indeed, the noble Lord attended our small seminar giving an early preview of the strategic directions paper. That featured in our discussion there. My noble friend Lady Hollis pointed out the risks of moralising on these issues by seeking to pursue targets in that way. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, made reference to the UNICEF report placing the UK at the bottom of the league. I think this was a 2006 report. The data used at the time were very out of date; none was later than 2003. Much of it related to 1999 and 2001. The noble Earl gave an interesting illustration of the young black lad concerned about his mother, who was working to try and sustain the family. The importance of role models in work so that you break the cycle of intergenerational poverty is absolutely right. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said that this is not just about financial transfers. We have common cause across the House on this issue. It is now thoroughly accepted that financial transfers are just part of it. We are not just looking at this to have a short-term fix on a target; we are looking at something sustainable. Financial transfers certainly have a contribution to make and it would be quite wrong to suggest otherwise. We need to do more, however, to make sure that the strategy is sustainable. I hope I have demonstrated why I think this amendment is unnecessary. The Bill will already require action to be taken on both income and non-income factors to address poverty and socio-economic disadvantage. I have also revealed the problems with the direction in which this amendment would take us with regard to particular targets on family breakdown and addiction. On this basis, I hope the noble Lord will not press his amendment.