Clause 4
Child Poverty Bill
4:00 pm
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work and Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
Despite the clause’s title, it is based, as Committee members have pointed out—the hon. Member for Northavon will shortly seek to catch your eye on that point, Mr. Key—on a rather curious methodology that it will perhaps cause the Government little difficulty to achieve. It refers to the absolute low income target but relates to an equalised net income for households with less than 60 per cent. of median income, with a base year of 1 April 2010. Ordinarily, a normal amount of economic growth should lift the vast majority of families in the UK comfortably above that baseline. By 2020 we will hopefully have had 10 years of growth, as we are told that the UK economy is returning to growth as we speak and we all hope that we will avoid another horrid recession in the coming decade.
There are questions about whether the target is demanding and whether it is a genuine absolute low income target. When giving evidence to the Committee, Rev. Paul Nicolson and others mentioned minimum income standards, such as the cost of feeding a family, which might be the type of definition that members of the public would more easily identify with the phrase “absolute low income”. What is the absolute minimum amount of income one needs to put food on the table and clothes on the backs of one’s family and to keep one’s house warm? Would the Minister explain the methodology used and state why that particular target has been set in relation to absolute low income?