Child Poverty Bill
12:00 pm
Kate Green: I think that you are asking two questions. You ask whether we would have been tempted to seek judicial review on a Government policy. As the Minister and hon. Members will know, we have taken the Government to judicial review during the past 10 years on a number of aspects of policy. I suspect that the question is about whether we would have asked for a judicial review on the failure by the Secretary of State to address the demands in this legislation.
It is difficult to speculate after the event, but we can see a framework now in which, if no significant and meaningful efforts were being made and it clearly looked like the target would not be met, I imagine that we would look for a judicial review well in advance of the failure to reach the 2020 target. It is not only about hitting the end point, but about the progress, effort and the steps that we can see are being made on the way, consistent with that objective.
Everybody understands that unexpected and difficult circumstances can arise, so it is important for us to track progress, not only as we reach the finishing post, but well ahead of that point. We will certainly be planning to do that.