Clause 1
Child Poverty Bill
10:45 am
Judy Mallaber (Amber Valley, Labour)
I agree. In the questioning session I specifically referred to many of my constituents who, if given additional income, do not have those other problems and are perfectly able to cope with their lives. Their sole problem is a lack of income. That in no way denigrates the really serious problem faced by a certain proportion of our population, and nobody downplays the importance of any of the items in the new clause.
When I quizzed the witnesses, there were contradictions in their answers. When I asked about targets, Neil O’Brien said:
“I think that you want a broader range of targets and you do not want to privilege a few of them over others. So you want, in a sense, to be neutral between the different types of approaches to challenging child poverty”.
He had asked for targets, but he also said that he did not want to privilege a few of them. If we list some of them in regulations in the detailed way that is proposed, that is precisely what we will do. Donald Hirsch said:
“the key thing is to...create a commission with some clout and some teeth, and one that provides a sort of discipline...The risk of having lots and lots of targets is that they duplicate targets elsewhere and also that each one of those targets itself becomes a potentially distorting measure.”—[Official Report, Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 22 October 2009; c. 116-17, Q34-35.]
The amendment does not take account of the Bill’s structure, which is a good structure, and we need to take equal account of the provisions in clauses 1 and 8. Clause 8 specifically asks for a strategy that is not just about the four income targets but about ensuring that children do not experience socio-economic disadvantage. That clause sets out the broad headings, such as education, financial support, social services and employment, under which a number of those targets would be set. We cannot have a Bill that encourages a Secretary of State to set out a whole load of targets that might conflict with what Ministers are doing in relation to their own departmental interests. That would be confusing. While nobody denies that the items in subsection (2)(a) to (h) of proposed new clause 3 are important, they would end up creating a muddle. I am surprised that a party that has gone on at the Labour Government for having too many targets now seeks to introduce a whole load of new ones. That is a slightly surprising contradiction in its position. The amendment does not add to the Bill, and we should oppose it.