Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, Amendment 14 is designed to place a caveat on the amendment to Section 9 of the Child Poverty Act which is already included in the Welfare Reform Bill. As I discussed on Report last week, the amendment to Section 9 is a clarification which confirms the Government’s existing understanding that the requirement in Section 9(7) of the Child Poverty Act for a UK strategy to describe progress can be met with a description of progress in narrative or policy terms, rather than in numerical or statistical terms. This amendment appears to seek clarification that the changes already agreed by the House will not undermine three requirements on the Secretary of State which are included in Section 9 of the Child Poverty Act; namely, first, that he must publish and lay before Parliament a child poverty strategy; secondly, that he must describe in that strategy the progress that he considers necessary to meet the four child poverty targets by the target year of 2020-21; and, thirdly, that he must describe in that strategy the progress he intends to make over the period of the strategy to reduce socioeconomic disadvantage as far as possible. I can state clearly on the record that our amendment to Section 9 is not designed to remove the requirement on the Secretary of State to do any of those things. The Secretary of State will continue to have a duty to produce a strategy every three years which sets out the measures that will be taken, and the progress that needs to be achieved, in that period in order to meet the targets by the target year and reduce socioeconomic disadvantage as far as possible. The purpose of our amendment to Section 9 is not to change the substance or effect of the law. The amendments simply clarify how progress can be described—in particular, that it can be described in policy or narrative terms rather than statistical or numerical terms if the Secretary of State so wishes. I discussed on Report the reasons why we think that this clarification is important. We believe that a requirement to set out the progress required in statistical terms is equivalent to a requirement for interim targets on child poverty towards the 2020 target. Interim targets incentivise the short-term, income-transfer approach that we have seen in the past. That approach has not worked and completely fails to address the underlying problems. This can lead therefore to small amounts of money being given to families just to lift them over the poverty line. The Government remain committed to eradicating child poverty and improving social mobility. We do not believe, however, that the right way to achieve these aims is by using income transfers to move people above an arbitrary line, so we must focus on tackling the root causes of poverty and changing behaviour. In the long term, those with the lowest level of income can only improve their life chances by keeping pace with those at the top. This is why we must take long-term sustainable measures to improve skills, abilities and aspirations. An income-transfer approach does not work because it is unsustainable and does not deal with or address the underlying causes of long-term deprivation. We will continue to monitor progress through the annual publication of the Household Below Average Income Statistics, the beloved HBAI. However, we think it is very important to clarify that the law does not require the child poverty strategies to set out interim income targets. It is because of this that we cannot accept the amendment. By reintroducing the wording of the original Child Poverty Act, in effect it would remove the clarification that we introduced using the amendment to Section 9. I emphasise that we remain fully committed to eradicating child poverty, and that amendment does not alter current government policy. We will continue to be required to produce a strategy every three years which sets out the measures that will be taken and the progress that needs to be achieved over the period. This amendment is unnecessary and unhelpful. The requirements it seeks to place on the Secretary of State already exist. All it will do is reintroduce lack of clarity regarding how progress is to be described, and I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw it.