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Welfare Reform Bill (Instruction)

With the leave of the House, Mr Deputy Speaker, I should like to respond to some of the comments made in the debate, and first of all to thank the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) for her support for the motion. It was interesting and useful to hear the comments of right hon. and hon. Members in this debate, and I am grateful for the points that they have raised. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) raised an important point on the language that we use to describe such issues to people who perhaps do not live and breathe them in the same way that we do. That is important, but it is not, along with a number of issues raised by hon. Members, fully within the scope of today's debate. We should debate such things in Committee, on Report or on Third Reading. Tonight's motion is on extending the scope of the Bill to enable that debate, and I am glad that so many hon. Members agree that the measure is appropriate. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead spoke of the importance of child care and getting full responses to his report, particularly on the early years. I remind him and hon. Members that we are committed to consulting on various options on child care and universal credit, although I am asking your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, in straying that far. The hon. Member for Glasgow East made a number of points, and I hope to cover a few of them. I point her and other hon. Members who commented on the broadening of the commission's role to our consultation on the various ideas in our child poverty strategy. I remind them that we received 280 responses to that consultation, which was more than those received to the consultation on the original Child Poverty Act 2010. Only around 6% of people who responded felt that broadening the commission's role was inappropriate. That shows that people understand the value of broadening the issues that are examined when we address child poverty, and that we cannot view children in isolation from either their communities or their families. Hopefully, hon. Members understand and agree with that. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) made a number of important points. She asked whether the Government remain committed to the 2010 Act. I should like to say a very clear, loud yes to that. The Government are clearly committed to the income targets in the Act, but as I outlined and as I am sure she will agree, tackling child poverty is not just about lifting people above an arbitrary income line; it is about ensuring that they have the support, incentives and skills necessary to create a better life for themselves. I hope that she would also agree on the importance of incorporating that principle into the commission's work. We are looking at the root causes of poverty, not simply dealing with its symptoms and moving finances and moneys about. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) raised a number of issues, but I would particularly like to pick up on the one about how tackling child poverty is about more than income. She has my wholehearted support for her sentiments. Using targets in isolation has in the past focused policy on short-term solutions, leading to vast sums of money being spent on financial support without fundamentally changing the causes of poverty. I welcome her support for our approach and the opportunity that will no doubt be afforded by her membership of the Welfare Reform Bill Committee to debate the detail and substance of some of the issues she raised. The hon. Member for Glasgow East talked about the broadening of the commission—in fact, this was also raised by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell)—and was worried that we were diluting the powers of the commission. I would challenge that; we are doing quite the opposite. We are actually reinforcing the commission's powers by giving it the opportunity to range more broadly over those issues that really affect the life chances of young people in this country. The commission's duty to report annually on progress towards reducing child poverty will ensure that the issue remains high on the Government's agenda, and I am sure that nobody needs reminding that it is also in our coalition agreement. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington mentioned the expertise on the commission, which might be an issue that we can discuss in Committee or perhaps on the Floor of the House on Report. One reason we believed that it was important to move to a child poverty and social mobility commission, rather than simply remaining with the legislation as it was, was precisely the one he raised: we wanted to ensure that that broader expertise was put in place. Many other issues have been raised today, but I want to touch on just one more before I close. Hon. Members asked why we believed that the reformed child poverty commission would be more powerful, and why it mattered that instead of having an advisory function, its role should be to hold the Government to account. We believe fundamentally that Ministers are responsible for the strategies put forward. However, section 10 of the 2010 Act clearly allows the Secretary of State to devolve to the commission responsibility for establishing a strategy or to act on advice in a way that could place on it responsibility for that strategy. This is really important and is at the heart of the coalition Government's approach to ministerial responsibility. We do not believe that the commission should be responsible for the strategy; that is the role of Ministers. That is one of the fundamental changes that we are making, and it will ensure that the role of the commission is to hold us to account for the work we are doing. We do not want to defer responsibility to a commission that after all is not accountable at the ballot box. That is one of the important changes we have made. In conclusion, we believe that these changes will ensure that the commission is an effective and efficient public body with the necessary powers to fulfil its duties and to hold Government properly to account. Moreover, they will remove the requirement on the commission as currently defined. It is a public body that cannot provide the taxpayer with value for money. There will be further opportunities to debate the content and detail of some of the issues raised today as we move through the various stages of the Bill. However, I hope that I have reassured hon. Members that allowing these changes is both necessary and beneficial to the cause of tackling child poverty, and I commend the motion to the House. Question put and agreed to.