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Child Poverty Bill

There is the possibility of distortion, not only in the child poverty agenda as we get nearer to the targets being met, but across the piece. Does my hon. Friend share my misgivings about such declaratory legislation, which means that child poverty, by being put on a statutory footing, has privilege over every one of the various other priorities that government has to balance at all times, such as the vulnerable elderly? If the legislation has force in the rather poorer decade that we now face, it could lead to the wrong decisions being made from a social justice point of view, in wider areas than child poverty alone.