Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, I am particularly grateful for the support of such a formidable legal brain as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. As she said, this term should be included in the interpretation. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Martin, is equally powerful. Here we have a declaratory Bill that uses words that most of the people whom it aims to help will not understand. That would seem to defeat the purpose. There is a fundamental issue. The Minister said that defining the term could hinder the Secretary of State. The other way of looking at that is that the Secretary of State can interpret it in any way she wants. If she does, it becomes an irrelevant requirement because the term is undefined. It reads well to some people—although not to the people whom the noble Lord, Lord Martin, is concerned about—but most will say that it does not impose any duty on anyone because it is an uninterpreted term. When the Minister leans on the crutch of his defence for our poor showing in the UNICEF tables, I remind him that a leading authority in the area, Professor Jonathan Bradshaw, observed that the data were out of date, but that we had a very long way to go and he was waiting to see whether we would improve. One can read a tone of some doubt in what he wrote. I am not prepared to press this amendment. However, I urge the Minister to think hard about whether putting in a term like this without an interpretation adds anything to the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 12 withdrawn. Amendment 13 Moved by