Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, in the Bill we have absolute flexibility for the Secretary of State to define socio-economic disadvantage and absolute inflexibility for local authorities when they come to make arrangements to co-operate with partner authorities. It seems odd to require co-operation from above and outside, and surely the freedom of a local authority to select its own relevant partner authorities would be likely to generate a far more enthusiastic and effective response than these precisely drawn sets of arrangements that are being imposed from above.