Clause 4
Child Poverty Bill
4:00 pm
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman asks whether there is any way that we can see poverty on any measure having reduced over the past 10 years. The proposal is to raise the absolute income target figure with inflation over the years. The truth is that, at an absolute level, not a relative one—that is the point and it is clear in the clause title—the number of people who do not have that level of money today will increase in future, so there will be a reduction, and there is a measurement of something real. The measure is an actual amount of money, not a measure against everyone else. Perhaps the school trips will be better, the holidays longer and the presents required bigger, but there will have been an absolute increase in the level of the household’s income and therefore there is a purpose to having the target.