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Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, we intend to reach the poorest in our society yet we use language they will not understand. What does "socio-economic disadvantage" mean? If someone said to me that children in the United Kingdom should not experience poverty and disadvantage then I would understand what the legislation meant. The people in my previous constituency would understand that. We have a tendency in this House and the other place of using jargon. For example, when the financial crisis came up, everybody spoke about "sub-prime lending". If they had just said "bad debt", everybody would have known. The dogs in the street would have known but we do not say that. It seems we have in-words so that we can understand. We know what we are talking about but no one else does. If we are trying to reach the poorest of the poor in our communities then we had best use language that is understood, or how can they know that they are the ones we are trying to help?