---

Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, I am prompted by what all speakers have said to support the amendment and I ask that it be at least given very careful consideration. The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, pointed to overcrowding and the noble Lord, Lord Martin, spoke eloquently of his experience in Glasgow. I have followed this issue over the years and I must say—I declare an interest as a landlord—that we have singularly failed to provide adequate housing for many of our people, which is a great national dishonour. Unfortunately, the pressures are there for that to carry on. We have not built as many homes as we intended to. It is important to be a home owner now, which makes it difficult to develop new areas because everyone is understandably afraid of the impact that that might have on the value of their property. This is just one factor. As my noble and right reverend friend Lord Eames said, we should see the child as a whole and not overemphasise any particular one of their needs. However, perhaps we need this particular indicator to ensure that we do not continue to fail families as we clearly have done, although I pay tribute to the Government for reducing the numbers of families living in temporary accommodation, which I think is below 100,000 now, and for their heavy investment in social housing.