My Lords, I add a brief contribution from these Benches to the excellent speeches that have been made on Amendments 4 and 8. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, that there will be an opportunity later in the Bill to develop her arguments when we come to the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and others about a healthy environment.
I listened to what the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said on the first group and again on the group we are now debating, and there is a powerful case for addressing child poverty—indeed, all forms of poverty—if one is to genuinely level up. Can I say something which I hope will be helpful to the Government? I think there is a way through. If one looks at the levelling-up missions on page xvii of the executive summary of the White Paper, one will see the mission to:
“Boost productivity, pay, jobs and living standards by growing the private sector”.
It seems that if one developed that section of the mission on improving living standards and focused it directly in the way that has been suggested in Amendments 4 and 8 on children living in poverty—or, indeed, all those living in poverty—one could address the arguments that have been made.
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I think the issue is that, at the moment, if you look down, what the Government mean by living standards is rather narrowly defined. The mission on living standards is defined as follows:
“By 2030, pay, employment and productivity will have risen in every area of the UK, with each containing a globally competitive city, and the gap between the top performing and other areas closing.”
The trouble with that definition of living standards is that it does not actually cover those who are not in work, which may include the groups that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has talked about, or indeed those who have retired. It seems to me that the way through, and the way to address this debate, is to make it clear that the definition of living standards will not be confined to the rather narrow criteria in the White Paper but will include some of the broader issues that have been identified in the debate so far. I wonder if my noble friend can give some assurance when she winds up that we will not be constrained by the rather narrow definition of living standards that we currently have.
Finally, my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond is ubiquitous. When this debate started, he was in Grand Committee addressing amendments of his own on the Financial Services and Markets Bill. I do not have his eloquent speech in my hand, but if, when she replies, my noble friend the Minister can assume that he made an eloquent speech on Amendment 14, which addresses specific issues concerning the disabled, that would be a courtesy. He would have spoken to the amendment himself but, as I said, he is only human and unable to divide himself in two. I would be grateful if we could have just a word or two on Amendment 14.