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Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, I seek reassurance from the Minister on a point that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, raised with regard to a concern that we might be promoting income transfers as opposed to tackling the roots of poverty. One questions, for instance, whether one might be diverting money towards supporting families on benefits, as important as that is, which could be spent on ensuring that there are more and better-quality social workers. We could spend the money on ensuring that there are more foster carers, because the number that we have and retaining them are so dependent on the fact that they have good social workers to support them. Alternatively, we could spend the money on our teachers and ensure that there is better sex and relationship education in schools, thereby reducing the rates of teenage pregnancy and ensuring that families prosper and children are taken out of poverty in that way. I am sure that we will come back to this debate. However, I would be grateful if the Minister would offer reassurance that other important objectives will not be lost in the narrow pursuit of the important targets that we are discussing today.