Clause 20
Child Poverty Bill
11:45 am
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work and Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I do not want to labour the case for these two amendments. I have set out my concerns about wasting the time of public services. When people travel to meetings, there is a cost. If they are not at their desks, they are forgoing time and attention that they could be devoting to other areas. If they have something to contribute, they should do so and, of course, the local authority can insist on that. For instance, a local authority can say to the health services that action is needed on a health inequality, or say to the police that action is needed in a particular area. It can say to Transport for London—or whoever—that the buses are not running between where people are living and where the jobs are. That is absolutely right. However, this proposal is over-prescriptive and runs the risk of wasting public servants’ time, which I am trying to avoid.