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Child Poverty Bill

The hon. Gentleman and I had a similar exchange on Second Reading, so we are going over slightly old ground. I have the HBAI figures in front of me—I am sure that he, too, has them—and I see from table 4.1 on page 72 that the highest point was in 1995, at 29 per cent. However, my point is that these problems have been around for a considerable period. The rate in 1987 was the same as it is today. We have not made the progress that one would have hoped, despite the Government having made child poverty a political priority, because we are only back at the level that we were at in 1987, hence the need for fresh thinking.