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Welfare Reform and Work Bill

My Lords, this amendment has been moved very comprehensively by my noble friend Lady Lister and spoken to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, to whom I should say that the closest I got to Oxford on Sunday night was watching “Endeavour” on television. This is a re-run of an amendment moved in Committee as part of a wider group covering life-chances strategies. The Minister’s response then, as reported in col. 1598 of Hansard on 9 December 2015, was clear on a commitment to publish a life-chances strategy, as well as the annual report as set out in the Clause 4 obligations, but there was no commitment to make this a statutory obligation. As my noble friend Lady Lister has argued, the concern

which has been expressed about the commission is that, for the future, it has no obligation explicitly to promote the tackling of child poverty. Although there is a commitment to report on life-chances data, and a statement on the record that there will be a life-chances strategy, the role of the Social Mobility Commission seems somewhat removed from this.

As my noble friend Lady Lister pointed out in Committee, promoting social mobility is a narrower ambition than tackling poverty and promoting life chances: it is not a substitute. It is, of course, a not unreasonable ambition, but a commission focused on life chances would naturally encompass the prospects of social mobility. The reverse is not the case. We therefore support my noble friend’s amendment. It seems odd that the Government are keen to have a commission reporting on progress on improving social mobility but not on life chances.

7.15 pm