Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Maybe I should apologise for it not being completely clear what this amendment was driving at. Interestingly—it may have caught him little by surprise—he seemed to agree with the main thrust of this amendment on both of the aspects that we have discussed. This amendment is clearly aiming to put a forcing mechanism behind both of those aspects. First, there should be a forcing mechanism to get better data on what the informal economy really represents in this area. Although I agree that the HBAI statistics are highly respected and widely used, one can make the argument that if they are the main instrument, of course they will be used. The IFS made it clear that the figures below the 40 per cent median are utterly unreliable. I think that is a reasonable interpretation of what it said. That is exactly the point. It shows that the informal economy is having a real impact at that level, as one would suspect. Secondly, on in-kind versus cash, I am grateful for the little briefing that the Minister’s team provided me with a couple of weeks ago. Clearly, the HBAI survey includes much of the in-kind provision. However, I refer to the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel—and I thank him for his valuable contribution. If this research comes out as saying that for many families in-kind is a far superior form of support than cash, instead of the Minister’s response that we will be able to take in-kind payments into account in the survey, what is so difficult about taking them into account at this stage of a Bill which is meant to deal with these issues? Rather than an assurance, albeit on the Floor of this House, that the survey will take in-kind payments into account, why not have it in the Bill as an obligation? I thank the Minister for his response. I do not think there is a huge difference between us. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 8 withdrawn. Amendment 9 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List. Schedule 1 : The Child Poverty Commission Amendment 10 Schedule 1 : The Child Poverty Commission Amendment 10 Moved by