Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, Amendment 14 seeks further clarification about the purpose of the changes that the Government introduced to the Child Poverty Act on Report. These altered the description of what the Government would do to achieve the target to end child poverty by 2020, as set out in the Act, from making progress to taking measures. Having reviewed the text after Report stage, we are concerned that this alters the substance of the Act to require the Government’s child poverty strategy only to set out what they propose to do rather than the progress they intend to make; that is, to remove the duty on the Government to make progress towards the targets. The amendment was laid at the end of our deliberations and proceedings on the last day of Report. We probed this a little on Report, when the Minister reassured me that the amendment was intended to clarify the Child Poverty Act and not to change the substance or to affect the law. Stephen Timms, the Minister responsible for that Act in the Commons at the time, stated that ““Clause 8””, which has subsequently become Section 9, "““requires the Secretary of State to publish a strategy every three years, to set out the progress intended over that three-year period in each of the policy areas specified in subsection (5), and to describe the progress needed over that period to meet the 2020 targets. In that way, the strategy will set milestones to 2020””.—[Official Report, Commons, Child Poverty Bill Committee, 27/10/09; col. 142.]" Will the Minister confirm that this is the function that the strategies will still play; that is, that they will both set out the progress that the Government intend to take and the progress needed to meet the 2020 target? Our amendment would ensure that this substance of the original Child Poverty Act would remain the substance of the current version. If the Minister does not feel able to accept it, will he describe for us the difference between what he proposes should now be in the Act and the original version, so that we can have a second chance to assess the merits of each? I beg to move.