Clause 1
Welfare Reform Bill
4:00 pm
Jim Murphy (Minister of State (Work), Department for Work and Pensions; East Renfrewshire, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman anticipates one of three points that I wish to make about migration. One is proximity to the labour market based on time out of it; the second is child poverty. The No. 1 priority of the Department for Work and Pensions is to eradicate child poverty. By general acknowledgment, the Government have set the most ambitious child poverty reduction target of any Government on the globe: we aim to halve it by 2010 and to eradicate it by 2020. In terms of migration strategy, it is important that those with dependent children—