New Clause 1
Child Poverty Bill
5:00 pm
David Gauke (Shadow Minister, Treasury; South West Hertfordshire, Conservative)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Our debates on the Bill have generally, I hope, been constructively conducted, but there is no doubt that there is a view of the Bill that could be described as cynical and sceptical, and which has been advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness on one or two occasions. That view is that the Bill is essentially distraction legislation. At the very point when the Government are about to fail to meet their 2010 target, which has been in place since the late 1990s, they have come up with a new idea—a Bill to enshrine a target for 2020. One can imagine someone sitting around somewhere in the Treasury looking at forthcoming issues, spotting a bit of a problem with the 2010 child poverty target and saying, “What are we going to do about it? We’ll come up with a Bill enshrining a target for 2020 and nobody will particularly mind, because we have our eyes on the slightly more distant horizon and all will be well”. In other words, it is a case of, “Do not judge us on what we deliver, judge us on our intentions,” which, if one wanted to make a partisan point, has often been the approach of this Government.
New clause 1 intends to return us to the here and now—the nitty-gritty of delivery on previously announced targets to ensure that they do not go by the wayside and that the distraction legislation approach does not work. The Bill enshrines something more demanding than the 2010 target. As the Financial Secretary said:
“The arrangement that the Bill sets out is significantly more demanding for the coming decade than the arrangements that have been in place over the past 10 years.”——[Official Report, Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2009; c. 8, Q17.]
That is all very well; we are supportive of the objective of the Bill. However, we should not forget the 2010 target and I hope the Government do not give up on it. The Minister, in his evidence, said that they have certainly not given up on it. In a moment, I will set out in further detail why this new clause would be very constructive.
Steve Webbrose—