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Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, these Benches, too, oppose the amendment. I shall be as brief as possible in the hope that we can finish the Committee stage of the Bill today. I will leave it to the Minister to refute the claim that this Bill is just about income transfer, which I am sure that he will want to do. I agree that the Government have done a great deal to tackle addiction, but I still have questions about whether the money is being well spent on the right sort of treatment at the right time. I share the concern expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, about reducing benefits to a family just because one or other of the parents spends some of their income on drugs. In the end, the children will suffer. An addict will spend the money first on the addiction and the children will not get the money. I accept what the noble Baroness said: you need to look at where the benefits go. If the money goes to the father, perhaps it should go to the mother. If it goes to the mother, perhaps it should go to the father. Unfortunately, in some cases, a bullying husband will get the money out of the mother, but that is another issue. I am concerned about the idea that the children in a family where one of the parents is an addict should not have the same rights to support from the state as any other child. When an addict is identified, the authorities do not always ask, ““Are there children in this household who need protection from neglect or abuse or from being in contact with criminal activity and people?””. That does not always happen, but it should. It is the sort of joined-up service that we want to see. I am sure that the Government do, too, but it does not always happen on the ground.