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Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Handsworth, made some important points when introducing his amendment and identified yet another serious flaw in these four targets. He is quite right to raise the possibility of many children much in need of support who will fall through the holes of this provision as currently drafted and who will go uncounted. Overlooking children who should certainly be included in an assessment of child poverty is a real danger of the Government’s decision to legislate on such a complex issue in only 30 clauses. By defining the success or failure for future government around the four financial targets, the Bill unavoidably biases any UK strategy to the households covered by those targets. The noble Lord’s amendments highlight that some children are almost impossible to catch in surveys and any assessment of their circumstances will be generalised and potentially misleading. Does that not cast doubt on the wisdom of measuring all success and failure against those four targets? The Minister will no doubt point out, once more, that any measures taken under Clause 8 or Part 2 need not restrict themselves to the households covered by Clauses 1 to 6. But "need not" and "will not" are two very different matters. The Bill has been introduced as an influential Bill that will actively focus the Secretary of State's attentions towards child poverty. How can the Minister accept that and yet remain unconvinced that its provisions will not actively focus attention on the households that it specifically identifies?