Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with these amendments. At their heart, they demand the answer to a simple question: are the poverty targets set in the Bill the right ones? Do they do the job? In particular, do families above the poverty line, as measured by the Bill, have adequate resources for nutrition and warmth, among other necessities? The problem is that the 60 per cent target has not been derived from any process at all, as far as I can gather, other than consensus among academics that it is about the right figure. It has certainly not been based on minimum income standards and, as we discussed in Committee, the poverty line is very considerably below the minimum income standard set by the Rowntree study—more than 15 per cent, as best I could judge. We may find ourselves brought face to face with this conflict before too long, to judge by developments in Germany on this issue. Germany’s Supreme Court has given the German Government until the end of the year to come up with benefit figures that ensure a "dignified minimum"—I am not sure what that is in German. Hans-Jürgen Papier, the president of Germany's Constitutional Court—I think that he is retired now—said that benefits must be based on "reliable figures" and "comprehensible calculations". Rough estimates, he said, are unconstitutional. Given the way that these trends develop within the EU, I would not be surprised to see academic consensus on poverty move away from relative poverty lines towards "dignified minimums" across Europe. However, to switch horses from relative poverty to minimum income standards at this stage, would, I think, destroy the Bill in its tracks. It is an entirely different approach, so while I am sympathetic to Amendment 23 of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, we could not accept it as it stands, for that reason. However, the debate on child and maternal nutrition can, I think, be extracted from the general position and made a specific requirement of the Bill. The evidence from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and the noble Lord, Lord Rea, in Committee was compelling in its focus on the importance of early maternal, and even pre-maternal, nutrition. The importance is amplified by recent reports that young girls have the worst diet of any group in society. So this is an issue about targeted measures and information, as well as incomes. The income element is, I anticipate, trivial against the long-term gains of healthy babies and children, and while it might be a stretch to use DEL-AME switches in a formal way in this context, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, suggested in Committee, the gains from getting this right are indeed substantial.