Clause 20

Part of Child Poverty Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 11:45 am on 3 November 2009.

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Photo of Helen Goodman Helen Goodman Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions) 11:45, 3 November 2009

I shall speak to amendments 4 and 5 at the same time as they are so clearly linked. I point out to the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire that, on its own, amendment 5 is ambiguous, as it proposes that authorities should be replaced

“as the authority thinks fit”.

That would mean that the amended line of the clause—line 45—would read “each of its partner authorities, as the authority thinks fit”. That has no clear meaning.

Taken in conjunction with amendment 4, however, the effect of amendment 5 would be to change line 45 from stating “each of its partner authorities, as the authority thinks fit” to “those of its partner authorities, as the authority thinks fit”. That would mean that responsible authorities would not have to promote co-operation with all the named partner authorities, which would certainly weaken the impact of these partnership arrangements.

The consultations that we undertook while preparing the Bill made it clear that local partners thought that tackling child poverty must be a shared responsibility of all key partners, rather than there being an opt-in system. It is clear that the local authority has a lead role, but other local partners must also play their part. The importance of partnership working was clearly demonstrated by the evidence that we heard from witnesses on 20 October.