We are getting far off the Finance Bill.
The Government told us that the Finance Bill should be taken as part of a whole suite of measures from the Budget, including those in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. Yesterday, we missed the six-year birthday of the Second Reading debate on the Child Poverty Bill in 2009, when the then shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, now the Home Secretary, said:
“When we talk about child poverty, we are also talking about family poverty. Children are poor because their parents are poor…I would almost like to change the name of the Bill from the Child Poverty Bill to the child and family poverty Bill.”—[Official Report, 20 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 613.]
The measures in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill and the Budget tell us to forget that child poverty has anything to do with parental and household income, and that the Government are going to abolish definitions of child poverty. We heard from the Chancellor of the Exchequer today at Treasury questions that he believes the Budget is offering a contract: higher wages for less dependence on welfare. He said that people would support that contract. I think more people will see the con trick in what the Chancellor is doing than the contract.