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Child Poverty Bill

I seem to recall that when Mrs. Thatcher came to power, unemployment was slightly over 1 million, and it reached 3 million within two years. It was still 3 million in the mid-1980s and that had a devastating impact on child poverty. This issue is cyclical, but the Government have clear control over the underlying policy, such as benefit rates. If benefit rates are price-indexed over a period of decades, people on benefits are cut adrift. At the time, that was explicit Government policy, because the argument was that people would be motivated to seek work if life on benefits was made very difficult for them. That was Government policy for decades, and I do not approve of it.