---

Child Poverty in Scotland

I think that the hon. Gentleman went further than that in his original contribution. We need to consider what the benefit processing centres do. There is one in Greenock in my constituency. Bringing together benefit processing activities can create greater efficiency, leading to people’s benefits being processed much more quickly than when functions are disaggregated throughout the country. It means that money gets to people who need it more quickly. That is why we are making efficiency savings and I do not believe that those who work in the call centres, whom the hon. Gentleman has callously dispatched to the dole queue, perceive their job as having no interest in people’s local circumstances. That is grossly unfair. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) made an excellent speech. She reminded us that poverty is not simply about material deprivation—lack of stuff—but the crushing of ambitions and condemning communities to never being able to better themselves, dream that life can be better or aspire to something beyond the circumstances in which they grew up. The crushing of ambition is part and parcel of poverty. Unlocking people’s potential and realising their ambitions is as much part of the target to eliminate child poverty as any specific indicator of material deprivation. My hon. Friend raised an issue to which many hon. Members reverted during the debate—the age-old quandary between universalism and targeting. It is as old as the welfare state and no Government will ever say that they have completely solved it. However, in the past 11 years, we have been able to increase universal benefit such as child benefit and the winter fuel payment at the same time as increasing targeted benefits such as tax credits and pension credit. We have managed to do both: increase universal benefit and target most help at those who need it most. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr. MacNeil)—