Child Poverty Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that useful point. I shall speak shortly about the measures in the Bill on kinship care—the friends and family provisions—which go some way towards addressing the issues he raises. His point is also well made because we need to consider the wider context within which children grow up. Family—both nuclear and extended—is very important within that. Returning to amendment 2, the inclusion of the amendment and the words "parenting skills" in the Bill go some way towards providing recognition for what I call the vanished eighth building block from the "Ending child poverty: making it happen" document that the Government's child poverty unit produced last year. The building block of family was clearly in the document but seemed to escape clause 8. The inclusion of parenting skills in the Bill is important. That is not all that we need to do in this area, but its inclusion is very welcome, none the less. I am also delighted that mental health has been included, through amendment 3. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) for having played an important and useful role in Committee. He valiantly attempted to get recognition for mental health in the Bill on 3 November 2009 with his amendment 62, which hon. Members can read in column 292 of the Committee's proceedings. The amendment was defeated by only one vote, so it nearly succeeded, and we had cross-party support on it. I am pleased that mental health is now included, as it is an important issue, which, for many families, must be addressed before they can move themselves out of poverty. Lords amendment 4, on recognising the vulnerability of specific groups, is particularly important and welcome. We discussed that issue in Committee on 29 October when we debated amendment 2, which can be seen at column 213 of the Committee's proceedings. I spoke about the issues that affect families with disabilities, who have particular needs, and I mentioned the needs of certain ethnic minority communities, such as the Bangladeshi community in London, in which there are particular problems. The recognition of vulnerable groups is useful. We need to recognise that we cannot have a one-size-fits-all strategy, and that certain groups will need particular focus, attention and outreach work. There are non-governmental organisations and others with particular expertise in this area. I was at a seminar on child poverty this morning at which I heard about some work done by Save the Children, again with Bangladeshi women in London. The work had been especially useful and real progress had been made, and I commend it to the child poverty unit. It is worth the unit looking into that work further when it considers vulnerable groups, which, as I have said, are an important and useful addition on the face of the Bill.