---

Child Poverty Bill

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. That is exactly the concern. I hope that we will be able to examine that issue. The situation will partly depend on how the powers given to the Secretary of State are applied, but there is clearly a concern. We believe that logically there is a role for local authorities; a lot of problems relating to poverty are local in nature, so clearly local authorities must have discretion in deciding how to tackle them. The concern is whether the balance will be right, and I hope that we will examine that in greater detail in Committee. We need to know what the burden on local authorities will be, and whether the Bill will be an effective way of reducing child poverty. There is a concern that the response to part 2 will be a plethora of advertisements in The Guardian for "a child poverty strategy co-ordinator, tasked with engaging in a permanent dialogue with key stakeholders and partner authorities to develop a cross-cutting strategic plan to meet statutory child poverty objectives", but that little will be done to move significant numbers of children out of poverty.