Clause 8
Child Poverty Bill
9:45 am
Sally Keeble (Northampton North, Labour)
She received a longer sentence than that. It also seemed that the courts had not made a proper assessment of how many children she had. She did not have proper legal representation and I think the courts thought—it was not absolutely clear—that she had only one child, but she had three and she was pregnant. She got quite a long custodial sentence—longer than 13 weeks—and it was only by starting to get proper legal representation and unpicking things that it was possible to resolve her situation a bit.
I suspect—I do not have all the data—that although this group of parents might not be huge, 100 per cent. of their children would be found to be living in poverty and suffering compound material deprivation. I understand that the Minister does not want to have a wish list that goes on and on, but will he consider giving some assurances about how the assessments locally and the strategy nationally can take into account the criminal justice system? That is particularly necessary because of the pressures on families in which the parents are involved with the criminal justice system, with a devastating impact on the family’s income. Will he make sure that he looks at not just the issues surrounding fathers but those relating to mothers?
I shall give an example of the particular impact on lone parents. One of my more instructive mornings was spent in a youth court, where all the young men were being done for nicking and driving cars, and they were getting community sentences. There were only a couple of women who were up in the youth court, one of whom was a very poor young mother. She was a teenager and had a couple of children. She was done for committing credit card fraud to get money to support her children. There are real issues about focusing on this difficult group and making sure that they are properly included. If my right hon. Friend the Minister cannot include them in the Bill, will he say exactly where the criminal justice system will come into play in looking at strategies to deal with child poverty?