---

Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I tabled the amendment in an attempt to try to work out where the Government believe the duty ties in with what they have done to reduce child poverty. Members of the Committee know that when I started talking about how the different government departments talk to each other to achieve the aims—they seldom do—I am really asking how this internal department is chasing around to achieve its aims. How would everything come together? I want to dig out where the incentive is to ensure that child poverty is part of the overall strategy. That is the real aim behind my amendment. On whether one should go to greatest need first, and bearing in mind the cost of equity to someone else, possibly one should. The costs and the savings may be much greater for the entire government machine. However, that was not the primary objective of this amendment. I wanted to find out how the whole comes together.