Clause 14
Child Poverty Bill
3:00 pm
Steve Webb (Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
A democratically elected Government are passing this law; it is not undemocratic to enforce something that an elected Parliament has introduced. I am intrigued by the thought that the responsible Secretary of State, whom I now understand to be “probably the Chancellor”, could be locked up. Presumably, the effect of court action is to require the Government to take steps to meet their statutory obligations. If the court says, “You’re not going to meet your targets. You are in breach of the Child Poverty Act 2010. What are you going to do about it?”, we hope that the Government, rather than saying, “Well, you can lock us up if you don’t like it”, say, “Right, we will take the following measures.” I have made my main point, but it is a bit odd that we have an excuse clause. Being able to explain the reason for failure after the event undermines the whole point of having a statutory binding target by 2020.