Clause 8
Child Poverty Bill
9:00 am
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work and Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
Good morning, Mr. Key. On behalf of the Committee, I welcome you back to the Chair on the penultimate day of our proceedings.
Clause 8 is the meat of the Bill. In many ways, it is the most significant clause, and the fact that a large number of amendments have been tabled to it shows that there is a lot of interest in it among Committee members. I shall go through the different issues raised by the first group of amendments, and I hope that the Committee will bear with me because that will take a little time.
Amendment 1, tabled by my hon. Friends and me, would add
“and the promotion of economic enterprise”
to the end of subsection (5)(a). When discussing eradicating poverty, it is important philosophically to mention, albeit briefly, the creation of wealth. I recognise that the state has an important role in alleviating poverty, but it cannot perform it alone. It is the wealth creators—the entrepreneurs and the business men and women throughout the country—who create jobs and set up businesses, and they will be at the heart of eradicating child poverty, which is the solution we all want from the Bill.