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Child Poverty Bill

We could spend for ever on this and doubtless we are going to come back to it time and again. Notwithstanding what the noble Lord has just said, to assert in the midst of that that the Bill is not focused on the causes of poverty is not sustainable. The noble Lord may think that our targets are inappropriate and that other targets might be produced in the fullness of time that would better help us to measure progress—we may differ on that point—but to say that we are not focused in this Bill on the causes of child poverty simply is not the case. He has made some assertions around a pound of income transferred and a pound of income earned. For a long time, since 1997, it has been at the heart of this Government’s policies to focus on the importance of work where people are able to engage in it. The noble Lord himself was an adviser to one Secretary of State. I do not have his statement with me but perhaps at the next Committee session I will bring it along and quote all the fulsome things he said about the real progress that the Government have made in these areas. The significance of work and how it helps people out of poverty is not a disagreement between us in principle. However, I urge the noble Lord please not to continue with his assertions that the Bill is not focused on the causes of poverty, because it is.