My Lords, this group of amendments is largely focused on the non-income issues and seeks to add the matters of worklessness and educational attainment to the measures, which the Government say are focused on the causes of poverty rather than its symptoms. These matters are important because it is asserted that what is measured and reported on will drive the focus of government attention, although reliance on this approach is inherently weaker than having strategy obligation and specific targets. There will be more about that in later amendments.
In considering Clause 4 and these amendments, we should set the context by reflecting on the starting positions, and that has been done by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor. The current Child Poverty Act 2010, as amended in 2012, contains targets to be met in 2020 that relate to: relative low income; combined low income and material deprivation; absolute low income; and persistent poverty. There are four targets, not just one. It provides for the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission—formerly the Child Poverty Commission, and soon to lose child poverty altogether—to give advice when requested to Ministers on how to measure socioeconomic disadvantage, social mobility and child poverty and to report on progress on improving social mobility, meeting the targets and implementing the required strategies.
The Act also requires the publication of a strategy to comply with the targets and to combat socioeconomic disadvantage. In preparing the strategy, consideration must be given to measures—we referred to them as the building blocks at the time of the legislation—including: parental employment and skills; financial support; promotion of parenting skills; physical and mental health; education, childcare and social services; and housing and social inclusion. The Act imposes a requirement for local authorities to co-operate to reduce child poverty in their areas and prepare local child-poverty needs assessments.
As well as having income measures and associated targets, this required the Government to produce a strategy which would have regard to a range of factors, including the multiplicity of matters which affect child poverty. Apart from for Northern Ireland strategies, this Bill sweeps away all those provisions—the entirety of them. We will seek to reinstate this with subsequent amendments. Instead, the Bill requires the Secretary of State to publish an annual report containing data on children in workless and long-term workless households in England and educational attainment at key stage 4 for children in England and the educational attainment of disadvantaged children. There is no obligation on
the Secretary of State to define these terms until the first report is provided for, in the year 2017 and a veiled referenced to developing “other measures” to recognise what is suggested are the root causes of poverty: family breakdown, problem debt and drug and alcohol dependency. There is no statutory obligation to do so.
There is a reference in the briefing notes to a “life chances strategy” in due course, but no commitment on the scope and timing of this. The commission will have a focus on social mobility and no longer on reducing child poverty. Crucially, the Bill removes any income measure and related targets. This is on the basis that income is a symptom, not a cause, of poverty and that the relative income measure can lead to spurious outcomes when medium incomes are falling.
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The range of amendments to this clause indicates that poverty is multifaceted in its causes and its persistence. We certainly accept that to break out of poverty—so that children do not enter poverty and do not stay or become poor in adulthood—requires action on a number of fronts. This was the essence of the strategy which the Bill now eschews. We also accept that poverty is not just about income but, like the commission, we believe that income is a key part of child poverty and who it affects, and that,
“household income must be central to any measure of child poverty”.
We agree that poverty is essentially about,
“the inability to achieve a minimum standard of living”,
and is a relative as well as an absolute concept. It is about being able to participate in society.
We note the point that what is measured and reported on may help to focus government to action, but the reality is that worklessness and educational attainment are already capable of being addressed within the building blocks of the strategy required under existing legislation. We agree that improving educational attainment and preventing long-term worklessness in households are important in tackling poverty, but there are other issues as well, some of which are dealt with in the amendments. As well as retaining a focus on income, the commission suggested that an additional multidimensional approach which looked at the causes of poverty could be developed. We will come to these issues in the next group. However, this would be subordinate to the key issue of income. We support that proposition.
I will come to some of the specific amendments in this group shortly, but I have a question for the Minister. What changes in policy will flow from abandoning the existing child poverty measures and targets, and what changes are expected to flow from the reporting of workless households and educational attainment? Even though the Government are turning away from measuring the current reality of poverty—the here and now—what will their focus be on its ongoing alleviation? We do not yet have a definition of disadvantaged children. Perhaps the Minister will say what the current intention is. Will that be defined in any way by income measures?
Amendment 22, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, would require reporting on the progress of
young people in a range of developmental areas. This would be relevant to considering the risks of poverty and should clearly have a place in a multidimensional analysis.
Similarly for Amendments 23 and 27, to which we have added our name, while it might be argued that attainment at key stage 4 will ultimately have to reflect progress at earlier key stages, particularly key stage 1, if this reporting is to be meaningful in concentrating policy then a start at the earlier stages of schooling must be beneficial. If the key concentration is on key stage 4, that is in danger of being too late.
We are advantaged by having the wisdom of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, on the position of children in care and care leavers, and the existing challenges that they suffer. The noble Earl made a powerful case on his Amendment 28 as to why they, too, should feature in an assessment of those likely to be at risk of poverty. So far as homelessness and his Amendment 29 are concerned, it is suggested that this is just one aspect of poor housing which should be considered. Others proposed by the commission were decency, overcrowding and stability. These are generally seen as having a clear impact on the experience of poverty rather than its cause.
In Amendment 34, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and others would require reporting on the health implications of benefit sanctions on households and on households with working incomes below the minimum wage. We know that the benefits system is pernicious and we have some further amendments later on in the Bill to try to flesh that out and support the comments made earlier.
Amendment 30 would require the Secretary of State to publish and lay before Parliament a report on children in families living in problem debt. As the commission pointed out,
“unmanageable debt is an important part of the experience of poverty”.
It suggested that the Government should consider ways to cover this more effectively in the “current material deprivation measure”. But given that this measure is to be abolished, how else do the Government consider that the matter should be addressed in their consideration of life chances?