Welfare Reform Bill

I must respond to the Minister’s reiteration of the Government's commitment to reducing child poverty. He will be aware that I shall therefore quote from the IFS study and its prediction that the number of children in poverty, having fallen to its lowest level for 25 years, will, under the coalition Government’s policies, rise to its highest level since 1999-2000 by 2020, at which time one quarter of all children will be poor. We of course look to the Government to prove the IFS wrong by making sure that that prediction does not come true. I am interested that it is the move to get rid of quangos that has led to the desire to remove the word ““advice””. I think that that is wrong. In addition to needing expertise, on which there is some agreement, the commission needs authority to be able to advise ministers. That is not policy-making; it is an input to policy. Describing its advice as being alongside other bodies devalues it, but the Minister has said that he wants this to be a more powerful commission. If that is the objective, clearly, we support it. We like the change of name and remit. I hope that he can hold to that in setting it up. I guess the great bribe to us this evening, having been told that it would be set up when the Bill was through, is for me to sit down as soon as possible and enable the Bill to be enacted so that the commission can be set up. I hope, however, that even if the word ““advice”” will not be there, Ministers and future Ministers will take the output of the commission extremely seriously as they develop policy, not simply in the implementation of it. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 62CZA withdrawn. Amendment 62CA Moved by