Schedule 1
Child Poverty Bill
6:15 pm
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness, Conservative)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr. Key, although given the number of interventions I have made, you might feel that I have already done so on a number of occasions.
I support the sentiments that lie behind the amendment. If we want the body to be independent, it is important that the chair should indeed face proper procedure and parliamentary oversight and approval before taking up the role. However, like my hon. Friend, I doubt whether it is appropriate in such a complex area of policy for democratically elected politicians, who are accountable to their electorate, to sub-contract policy making and the prioritisation of various measures that are required to tackle child poverty to a quasi-independent commission. The Government of the day should be responsible for getting the balance right between, for instance, the use of cash transfers to ensure that the targets are met in the short term, and ensuring that there are incentives to work and priorities for public expenditure in areas such as education, employment and skills.
I remain deeply cynical about the origins of the Bill. I cannot help feeling that it was brought about because the Government were embarrassed by the fact that they would be heading into a general election next year having failed to meet their child poverty target in 2010. So what better way of sucking in those issues when campaigning other than to do every last thing that they could to meet that target and talk about some grand Bill that would eradicate poverty in the long term? Given the discipline of my Front Bench and its focus on doing the right thing, we have always resisted temptation and the Government’s hope of an artificial division. What would better have suited a failing Labour Government than to have got the Conservatives to vote against a child poverty Bill? What an excellent dividing line that would have been from the Government’s political point of view, even if it did not serve the best interests of children who live in poverty?
I do not think that we should have a child poverty commission, because the Government should take full responsibility and account for themselves to the electorate, but if they intend to set up a commission, we need to ensure that it is accountable to Parliament. It must not be just a halfway house with most of the people who sit on it having been appointed by the Secretary of State, while it is claimed that it has genuine independence.