Child Poverty Bill

Public Bill Committee, 3 November 2009.

Clause 18

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I beg to move amendment 69, in clause 18, page 10, line 22, leave out from ‘England’ to end of clause.

It is a pleasure to move this amendment under your chairmanship, Mr. Caton. There is a slight mistake in the amendment printed on the amendment paper, which is probably down to my drafting of it. It is supposed to delete the words from “other than” in paragraph (b) to the end of that paragraph, rather than from “England” to the end of the clause. That is not exactly clear from the amendment as it is printed.

I have alluded to the importance of housing and housing authorities. In areas where there is still two-tier local government, district councils are housing authorities. As we have discussed previously, housing is a critical factor in poverty, particularly in the material deprivation of children. Housing authorities are extremely important, not just as partner authorities, but as responsible local authorities under the Bill.

I looked at the draft regulations that are due to be introduced next year, as I mentioned previously. In their current form, they will not provide adequate protection and protocols to ensure that district councils in areas where there is two-tier local government and which are simply partner authorities, not responsible authorities, are subject to adequate safeguards so that authorities can work together properly.

I want to make only a few points, as I know that the Committee has a lot to get through. I will draw on the example of my own local authorities, which are relevant because we have two-tier local government and a large housing authority. I am sure that the Financial Secretary will correct me if I am wrong, but under existing legislation, district councils in areas where there is two-tier local government have two important powers that are relevant when considering child poverty. First, they are responsible for conducting local economic surveys, which means that they have an economic development function. That is important with regard to encouraging economic development as part of tackling child poverty. Secondly, they have responsibility for setting the local housing strategy, for which they have to assess housing need and look at homelessness and all other factors.

Those two responsibilities are critical functions when considering child poverty. It is absolutely true that where there is two-tier local government, the county council has overall responsibility for children’s services, social services and education. Those services are important for the overall well-being of children, but economic development and homelessness are important when considering the vulnerability of children, which is slightly different from what we considered previously regarding poverty. It is therefore important that housing authorities that are district councils in two-tier local government areas are responsible local authorities rather than just partner authorities.

Of Northamptonshire’s 700,000 people, about a third—by far the biggest concentration of the population—live in Northampton, which has the biggest housing stock. I should have checked the numbers before I came to the Committee, but I think it now has 11,000 to 12,000 units. The next biggest area is Corby. Both those large and complex urban areas have problems with disadvantage and child poverty. Some of the other, more rural, local authority areas have problems with poverty, but they do not have as much housing.

I do not see how child poverty can be tackled without making the two local authorities, which have problems in that regard, responsible authorities. They should not just be partner authorities. If a protocol states that the county council has responsibility, that the other council is a partner authority and that they have to find a way to work in partnership, how they are supposed to do so must be made clear. For example, when children’s issues were being looked at in the county, one of the rural authorities had to represent the housing authorities. I am sure that the person who went to the partnership meetings was experienced, passionate and committed, but the rural authority had no housing. That person could not therefore deal with the issue that they were supposed to oversee, because they were from a rural council rather than an urban one and had virtually no housing stock. The discussion with the other partner authority must have proceeded by some sort of osmosis.

There are also difficult issues surrounding data sharing, which leads me to another example of how the protocols do not work. Following the Homelessness Act 2002, there were supposed to be protocols for joint working between county and district councils to ensure that homeless children were protected and did not find themselves homeless. My hon. Friend the Member for Regent’s Park and Kensington, North was closely involved in that work. We struggled because, rather than giving the district council responsibility, there was a similar structure to the one under discussion with partner authorities and protocols for joint working.

I had to deal with a domestic violence case that involved children, which, sadly, occurs often, and the county was dealing with child protection issues. The family involved had a record of domestic violence with young children, and the district council’s environmental health officer received a report of noise nuisance from the family living below them, who complained about fighting upstairs. However, the partner authorities could not share data, and the protocols were not in place to turn a report about serious fighting over to social services so that they could deal with the child protection consequences. If the protocols do not work on such a sensitive area of child protection—alarm bells should ring all over local government if there is a report of any risk of harm to a child—I do not see how they will deliver on child poverty issues when housing is one of the measures of material deprivation and is just one issue among 21 others.

I understand that there are all sorts of issues surrounding joint working and what ought to happen, and that regulations will be introduced and the responsible authority will have a responsibility to work with the partner authority. However, district councils should be regarded as responsible local authorities, unless my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary can think of a way of ensuring that they are involved when they have a certain amount of housing stock. Once unitary local government is in place across the country, I hope that the problems will resolve themselves. Until then, however, where there is two-tier local government, it is important that district councils are responsible, not just partner authorities, to ensure that the housing and economic development functions are dealt with properly by local government.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I welcome you back, Mr. Caton, on the final day of our proceedings on this important Bill. I am grateful to the hon. Lady, as always, for her amendment. She has raised a number of significant issues already and I am not surprised—indeed, I am pleased—that she has come back to the important issue of housing, which she says is behind her amendment. She has been good enough to explain to the Committee what she intended by her proposal, which we understand is not exactly what went down on the amendment paper, so that is helpful in directing us along the lines that she intended.

I recognise the point that the hon. Lady has made. I started my political life in a London borough where there was just one council. I then moved to a shire county where I worked with a district and a county council, and we have just moved to a unitary basis. We have a new Central Bedfordshire council, so I am back where I started, but I acknowledge her point about the possible chasm between a county and district council where they are responsible for different services, especially housing.

The hon. Lady is right to mention housing. It creeps into the Bill—only just—by virtue of clause 3, on the combined low income and material deprivation target. The Minister was kind enough to supply the Committee with the 10 material deprivation questions, both to an adult and to a child. I have just looked at them and, as far as I can see, there is only one question to the child, which is whether there are enough bedrooms for every child of 10 or over to share their bedroom only with siblings of the same sex. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady is saying that there are two questions: there are other issues about having friends round for tea and so on, which, I accept, relate to housing.

The amendment does not mention housing, but the hon. Lady rightly intends to make housing more of a priority in the Bill, which does not give the emphasis and priority to housing issues that she seeks. No doubt Ministers will, perhaps correctly, argue that there are other places where that can be done.

The hon. Lady has raised an important issue. A high degree of partnership working is required, with local authorities emphatically not trying to pass the buck in relation to their responsibilities, for the issues to be properly joined up. That degree of partnership working happens between many district and county councils up and down the UK, but I have no doubt that it does not always work as perfectly as it could or should in some of them. She has recounted experiences from her own area in that regard.

Clearly, we will not vote on this probing amendment, but I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising an important issue. I shall listen with interest to the Minister’s response.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

The spirit of the amendment is right— housing is a key element of the anti-poverty strategy, and the district councils will have a key role to play. My reservation about the amendment, as the hon. Lady intended it to be tabled, is that we could end up with two separate principal authorities responsible for developing a child poverty plan in a given area. One of my worries about the Bill relates to central Government. As we heard earlier, there was a bit of hesitation as to where the buck stops: if it is everyone’s responsibility, it is no one’s responsibility.

My worry is that if we have two separate tiers of local government, each responsible for drawing up its own plan, affecting in some cases the same set of people, that could create an unnecessary overlap. I therefore hope that we get reassurances that district councils and their housing functions will be central to the delivery of the Bill. I am not wholly convinced that the amendment is the way to do it.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I agree with the points that have just been made. I, too, see the importance of including housing as it is a central part of understanding and combating child poverty. However, in my experience, trying to put in another principal authority would lead to chaos. We need a clear line of responsibility for somebody to take the initiative. Local government does everything these days on a partnership basis, and there is a lot in the Bill about encouraging that.

For those reasons, the principle of allowing district councils to come in and play an important part is already strengthened in the Bill. Considering them partner authorities in no way reflects on their import or status in putting the strategies together. Certainly, that is not currently a restriction in relation to the strategies that local government is putting together to address child poverty issues, and changing it would lead to more confusion and delay in trying to get a strategy in place.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr. Caton?

I fully appreciate the sincere concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North about giving housing its rightful place as we move forward with the strategy to combat child poverty and about ensuring that local government bodies with responsibility for housing play their full part in the partnership arrangements. Respondents to the consultation on the Bill were clear about the importance of effective partnership working. They believe that it is important that the Bill should set a clear framework for co-operation between local authorities and their partners, and that those arrangements should be delivered through existing partnership structures, such as the local strategic partnerships. They were also clear that although it is important that the Bill should set a framework, it is effective practice and support that results in good partnership working.

My hon. Friend’s amendment is technically defective because it would not achieve her aim; the effect of her intended amendment would have been to remove from all authorities, other than county councils, the responsibility for putting in place arrangements to co-operate. Therefore, in areas covered by unitary authorities or London boroughs, for example, no authority or other body would be responsible for putting arrangements in place for co-operation to reduce and mitigate the effects of child poverty.

I know that my hon. Friend is particularly concerned about the effectiveness of partnership arrangements between county councils and district authorities in relation to housing. Housing clearly plays an important role, but, as hon. Members have said, making non-unitary district councils responsible authorities would not result in effective partnership working. One body must take overall responsibility for ensuring arrangements to co-operate in the local area. Making all district authorities responsible authorities, alongside their respective county councils, would mean that in any one area a number of bodies would have the responsibility. That would clearly result in confused accountability.

I would like to draw my hon. Friend’s attention to what Kevan Collins said in evidence:

“I do not know what other body locally would be the appropriate one. The local authority has a special, important place in convening, and a leadership role in all these matters, so it is absolutely right that the responsibility is distributed in that way.”——[Official Report, Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2009; c. 60, Q134.]

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I completely recognise the practical difficulties of the amendment as it is drafted. I would appreciate it if my hon. Friend said how she expects the partnerships to work and what kind of protocol should be in place. The key is ensuring that we do not end up with the county council and one district council deciding all the other areas. I am particularly interested in the protocols; I am sorry if I did not make that clear enough in my speech.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I am about to draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the later parts of the Bill where the processes are set out.

It is clear that partner authorities must play a full part in the local arrangements to tackle child poverty. The local needs assessment, in clause 21, and the joint local child poverty strategy, in clause 22, are framed in the Bill as the responsibility of the partnership, not just the responsible local authority. Clause 22(2) states:

“The joint child poverty strategy must set out the measures that the responsible local authority and each partner authority propose to take”,

which means that it must cover the actions of all the main partners with responsibility for housing, including district authorities.

I hope that my hon. Friend can see that the upper-tier authority will have a leadership role in convening the partners together. However, for needs assessment, strategy and action, all the partners will have a responsibility to fulfil their duty and play their part. In addition, the draft regulations for local needs assessment, which we have circulated to the Committee, will require those assessments to cover a range of local services, including housing.

The arrangements for partnership working set out in the Bill are the right ones, but it is clearly important to ensure that they result in effective working practice. Statutory guidance made under the Bill will build on the good experience of some local authorities, providing information and guidance on how to ensure that local government and its partners can maximise the opportunities for effective partnership working. With those reassurances, I hope that my hon. Friend will withdraw her amendment.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I am grateful to the Minister for setting out what I wanted to be set out when I tabled the amendment. I shall look carefully at the regulations and the guidance, but having received assurances I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 19

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I beg to move amendment 3, in clause 19, page 10, leave out lines 38 and 39.

Martin Caton (Labour, Gower)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 62, in clause 19, page 11, line 3, at end add—

‘(i) a Mental Health Trust.’.

Amendment 73, in clause 19, page 11, line 3, at end insert—

‘(i) a Regional Development Agency,

(j) Learning and Skills Council.’.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

There are three amendments in the group, and I shall go over them in turn.

Amendment 3 is a probing amendment and not one that I intend to press to a vote. It is intended to provoke some debate about the inclusion of police authorities and chief officers of police as partner authorities in eradicating child poverty. I recognise that they are statutory bodies and already members of local strategic partnerships, which is entirely appropriate in the context. However, I must admit that I find it a little difficult to understand their core role and purpose in defeating child poverty, particularly given how child poverty is defined in the Bill, with the four targets specifically focused on income poverty.

I can see that the police have a role in child well-being, because children need to be safe and secure; that is even more important for children than for adults. The Government, however, rejected our amendment 58, which sought to place “well-being” in clause 8. We were told that the Bill is not about childhood well-being, which is fair enough; that is the Government’s prerogative. However, I was left questioning why chief officers of police and police authorities are mentioned.

It is not just me who suffers from a little confusion about such matters. When we saw reference in the Bill to chief police officers, Conservative Members said that they thought it appropriate for the Association of Chief Police Officers to give evidence to the Committee. ACPO’s feedback was that it was not sure why it was being asked to give evidence in discussions about a Child Poverty Bill and that it could not see the immediate relevance of being asked to do so; I am not the only one to question its involvement. Involving ACPO would certainly do no harm, but I can see more logic in amendment 62, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness. That would include mental health trusts in the list of partner authorities.

It is almost a clichĂ(c) to say that mental health trusts are the Cinderella service of the NHS, but they seem to be cast in that role given that the Bill makes no reference to them. I have no doubt that the Minister will direct me to clause 20(1)(c) and say that local authorities can include mental health trusts if they so choose. However, it is a little odd to say that councils must work with the police whether or not councils think that they are helpful, but that councils only “may” work with mental health trusts. It would be more logical to put things the other way round, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness will explain with his customary panache when speaking to his amendment.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I have huge sympathy with the idea that mental health is a key issue in tackling child poverty. I suppose that the rationale behind the list might be that it covers a set of commissioning bodies. For example, acute hospital trusts are not included in the list; presumably, that is because primary care trusts decide what they do and how they spend the money. Does that not apply to mental health trusts, too?

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

There may well be logic in what the hon. Gentleman says, but I am concerned about the fact that mental health trusts are statutory bodies. He is correct to say that they clearly have an important role, but I am questioning why they should not have a seat at the table, as of right, because they are spending public money and providing services. I accept that they are not the commissioning body—primary care trusts are—but mental health trusts have a vital role in helping parents of children with mental health problems get back into the workplace and thus enable children to be the productive workers of the future. I shall listen with interest to what my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness has to say on the subject.

I have some sympathy with amendment 73, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Regent’s Park and Kensington, North. We could argue that regional development agencies, learning and skills councils and their successor bodies, which are charged with local economic regeneration policy and local skills training, have a good case for being included in the Bill. So, perhaps, do chambers of commerce and further education colleges, as they play an integral part in what we are trying to do.

The hon. Lady’s amendment is supported by London Councils, the collective body that represents all local authorities in London. It thinks it surprising that regional development agencies and the Learning and Skills Council, which is soon to become the skills funding agency, have been omitted from the list of partner authorities. No doubt my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness wishes to speak to his amendment, but I will listen with interest to the rationale for the current list of partner authorities when the Minister responds.

Karen Buck (Labour, Regent's Park and Kensington North)

As we have heard, the danger of having a list of partner authorities is that we focus on the partners that are not in the list, but the danger of having a comprehensive list of dozens of partner agencies is that everybody feels that responsibility lies elsewhere. It is then hard to focus, and some of the work at local-area-partnership level reflects that.

I have a strong view that it makes sense to keep a tight focus. The emphasis at the local level on commissioning is sensible and sound, and we should not dilute responsibility too much. However, in practice there is frequently a weakness in the relationship between a local authority, those agencies—the PCT and others—that commission services in the area, and the more regionally based and, in some cases, national organisations, whose service delivery and commissioning can have huge implications for a local area service.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Does my hon. Friend agree that where there is a local prison, particularly a women’s prison, it might be appropriate for the responsible authority to look to involve that body when discussing the poverty of prisoners’ children?

Karen Buck (Labour, Regent's Park and Kensington North)

I can certainly see my hon. Friend’s point. I am sure that everyone here has experienced constituency casework involving a lack of communication and a lack of data that would allow policy to be shaped on prisoners’ children and many other issues.

The two agencies that I want to add to the list are particularly important and germane. The regional development agencies have a driving role in child care delivery, and the Ministers have graciously conceded the importance of child care as a key policy commitment to be specified in the Bill. I welcome that, but the resourcing of a significant amount of child care to assist in the employability of parents is done through the regional development agencies. For example, the London Development Agency is the delivery agent for the child care affordability programme in London, which has significantly helped to deal with affordability and child care delivery. It has just awarded another £1 million to my local authority to provide 200 child care places for parents seeking work. Having that bound into the local delivery of child care provision is critical, and I therefore strongly commend the inclusion of the regional development agencies.

The Learning and Skills Council, which is soon to change its name to the Skills Funding Agency, is also very relevant, and I shall give an example of why. Last week, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions came to a school in my constituency and met a group of parents who were supported by a voluntary organisation called Women Like Us, which does important outreach work in traditionally hard-to-reach communities, with primarily Bangladeshi and Arabic-speaking women. A strong message from the women to my right hon. Friend was that many of them wanted to work in schools and child care settings because the working hours made a great deal of sense for them as parents, and there was also a cultural dimension, in that they regarded such settings as good and safe places to begin their working lives. However, they were not funded, so they were required to pay for a level 3 national vocational qualification in child care, which is now a necessary qualification for working in a school setting. On the one hand, the accreditation standard for working in child care has changed—whether through local authority or national Government determination I do not know—and, on the other, LSC funding of skills training has not changed, so there is a gap between the training that parents require to fill the available jobs and the funding. That is a good example of where we need to tie up more effectively how we resource skills training with the kind of jobs people want to take and are preparing for. There are good arguments for those two agencies, if we are to have a specified list of partner agencies. I look forward to my hon. Friend the Minister’s response.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Caton. I shall speak primarily to amendment 62 which, as my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire commented, would add mental health trusts to partner authorities. The hon. Member for Northavon pointed to the logic of omitting mental health trusts from partner authorities but I shall explain why I believe that logic is flawed in practice.

I will make a few comments about the prevalence and impact of mental health, and the reasons why it is relevant to any debate on child poverty, even in a Bill that centres mostly on incomes rather than wider issues. According to the brilliantly named Dr. Nurse, the national lead for public mental health and well-being at the Department of Health, one in six of the adult population experiences mental ill health at any time. Some 10 per cent. of children have a mental health problem, which for many continues into adulthood, and 15 per cent. of people experience a disabling depression at some time. One in 100 people has a serious mental health problem. It goes without saying that those problems—particularly in the acute phase—have a real impact on a family’s ability to manage finances and ensuring that the children do not suffer poverty. King’s Fund research estimated that mental health problems in England had a social cost of £71.1 billion—around 5.3 per cent. of gross domestic product—in 2007. Increasing trends of poor mental health mean that, by 2026, the cost of mental health problems is projected almost to double to £136 billion, which will be made up of more than £47 billion of health and social care service costs, and £88 billion a year from loss of employment. That figure can be compared with the £95 billion that we currently spend on the NHS each year.

Mental health is therefore a hugely important issue that will grow in importance over coming years. It is obvious that the loss of employment through poor mental health will have a serious impact on the income of a household in which a child is growing up, as well as possibly on the health of the parent and the quality of parenting that they can provide. Poor mental health in children has an effect on educational outcomes and school drop-out rate. It clearly has an impact on their life chances and ability to move out of poverty for good. I put it to the Minister that it would almost be perverse not to include mental health trusts as partner authorities when poor mental health will be one of the most significant determinants of household income and child welfare.

I now come to the succinct point that was well made by the hon. Member for Northavon about the logic that the Bill includes primary care trusts and strategic health authorities as partner authorities and that they are the commissioners of services. I put it to the hon. Gentleman and, most importantly, to the Minister that in reality that is not entirely true. In my area, there is an excellent local mental health trust that is seeking foundation trust status. It has members, a board and a chairman. The reality is that the services it provides—[Interruption.] The Minister is looking dubious. The money flows through the primary care trust but I put it to the Minister that, in reality, local mental health services are chiefly commissioned by that mental health trust. It is the body with the expertise; it is not micro-managed. It gets on and provides the tapestry of services as it sees fit, working with its members, board and experts. It is not looking over its shoulder all the time to the PCT to tell it what to do, let alone to the far-distant strategic health authority whose main aim is to ensure that that trust is properly run and that its books balance. I will press the amendment to a Division and I ask Ministers to take it seriously.

The Campaign to End Child Poverty, which is run by Save the Children, Barnardo’s and Gingerbread, has submitted a memorandum stating:

“The Campaign to End Child Poverty agrees with the Committee that parental mental ill health is a major contributing factor to child poverty. We note that Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities are listed in Clause 19(2) as partner authorities, and suggest that these are the appropriate bodies to hold responsibility for setting out their role in the reduction of child poverty as they are commissioning bodies rather than providers.”

That powerful contribution does not help my case, but I am not persuaded by this. I ask the Minister to reflect on the matter and to consider talking to others on the front line. I am convinced that mental health trusts are not merely providers at the behest of commissioners. They are effectively a real commissioner of services, and if they are not at the table when mental health has such a critical role in child poverty, there is a risk that the Bill’s central aims will be undermined and it will be a weaker piece of legislation. I hope that the Minister will consider that.

The Government reject the idea of including those authorities because they want things to be very local, yet they have strategic health authorities listed as partner authorities. That is rather peculiar. The hon. Member for Regent’s Park and Kensington, North talked about child care and also what the regional development agencies are there to do. The Learning and Skills Council is there to provide skills and promote enterprise. It was disappointing and slightly bizarre that the Government did not see fit last week to accept our amendment that would have put the promotion of enterprise as a route out of child poverty in the Bill.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

This collection of amendments relates to clause 19, which sets out the partners that must work with local authorities to tackle child poverty at a local level. As child poverty is complex and multifaceted, it is clear that a range of partners must be engaged in local action on this issue. I remind the Committee that the clear message when we consulted on the content of the Bill was that measures to promote local action would succeed only if they covered action by all relevant partners in a local strategic partnership. We heard that again from the local partners who gave evidence to the Committee on 20 October. This is one reason why we have included police authorities and chief officers of police in the list of partners in the clause. Amendment 3, which was tabled by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire, would remove them from that list.

Everyone in the room will agree that crime blights the lives of many families living in the most deprived areas. For example, in 2008-09, the burglary rate for households in the most deprived areas was more than double that in the least deprived areas. Crime must therefore be tackled if we are to improve children’s life chances. The vast majority of poor families are hard working and law abiding. However, when parents do engage in crime, it increases the likelihood that their children will suffer from poverty and deprivation. I emphasise to the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire that we are asking the police to be involved in the needs assessment and the strategy formulation. I am sure that he can see that the police are a centrally important partner in assessing what is going on in a local area and deciding what actions should be taken.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I do not dispute for one moment that crime is a blight on every community in this country and that it often impacts disproportionately on the poorest—the Minister is absolutely right to say that. However, coming back to the Bill and the targets in clause 2 to 5, the only one she can hang this on is material deprivation because all the others relate to specific levels of income. Looking again at the list of questions to adults and children about material deprivation, I cannot see one that relates to crime. How will we tie in the police if they are not on the Minister’s list in the area that she claims is important?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Let me give another example, which is connected to something that one of my hon. Friends said. It is well known that children whose parents have been found guilty of criminal activity are themselves far more likely to be found guilty of such activities. That clearly impacts on their capacity to find work, better themselves and move out of poverty. Over the last three weeks, the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire has repeatedly emphasised the importance of getting to the root of the problem. I would have thought that he would acknowledge this to be one area where we are doing just that.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, police forces play an active role in LSPs and the delivery of local area agreements across the country. That partnership working is a key element of the Bill. We expect local child poverty strategies to be developed and delivered through the existing structures, and will make that clear in the guidance. The Bill requires partners to strengthen their partnership working in order to offer families in poverty the most effective service possible. The police are an important part of existing partnership structures, so such arrangements should not place undue burdens on them. I hope that hon. Members will recognise the crucial role played by the police in supporting our communities and delivering effective local child poverty strategies, and I hope that the Committee will agree that we should not remove the requirement on police authorities and chief officers of police to co-operate with local authorities, and their partners, to tackle child poverty.

Amendment 62 has been tabled by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Does my hon. Friend envisage prisons being involved either under this clause or clause 20?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Any other body can be involved under clause 20(1)(c), if that is believed to be helpful to the delivery of the strategy. I have not considered the case of prisons before now, so I will not make any commitments to my hon. Friend on that point.

Let me return to the issue of mental health trusts. Nobody doubts the significant link between mental health issues and the causes and consequences of child poverty. In preparing the Bill, we considered including mental health trusts in the list of named partner authorities. However, after discussions with stakeholders, we concluded that it was important to commit those bodies with strategic influence, including those with responsibility for commissioning services, to the requirements in part 2 of the Bill. Strategic health authorities and primary care trusts are listed as partner authorities.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

I put it to the Minister that mental health trusts do effectively commission services from organisations other than themselves. They drive the delivery of mental health services in a local area. They are not primarily driven by PCTs, let alone strategic health authorities.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I am sorry, but I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s description of the institutional architecture. Mental health trusts may provide good services and be imaginative and creative, but the commissioning body is the PCT.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I am doing my best to be helpful this morning, but I cannot keep it up. The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness makes an important point. The Minister refers to “institutional architecture”. Presumably, when every trust is a foundation trust, it will be even more the case that such bodies are free-standing and able to set their own agenda and priorities. If there is a problem with a constituent regarding mental health issues, one does not on the whole go to the PCT, but to the mental health trust. Given that the Government thought about doing that in the first place—it is not an off-the-wall suggestion—will the Minister think about it again and perhaps return to the matter later?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

No. Although foundation trusts can raise money from other sources, they may use that only for the purpose of providing the goods and services agreed on with PCTs. It would, in any event, constitute only a minor proportion of a foundation trust’s income and would not deflect from the PCT’s requirements under the Bill.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Does my hon. Friend agree that the role of the PCT in mapping out mental health needs for communities is particularly important? She has pointed out, as I think others have, that people move in and out of mental illness. Therefore, the role of the body with a wider remit for mapping out the commissioning is particularly important, because it will be much more accurate in picking up the real needs and impact of mental health on the community and on child poverty. It is therefore right to have the PCT as a partner authority.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

My hon. Friend has expressed the position beautifully; I wish I had been as clear myself.

I also want to pray in aid the wonderful clause 20(1)(c). It states that in a local area, if it is decided that there is a particular problem, it will be possible to co-opt a mental health trust. We seek, as I have said, to reproduce the arrangements, which we have, in the local strategic partnership for the sustainable communities strategy. We are not trying to set up a whole new bureaucratic system, or a whole new set of burdens on local authorities, and I would have thought that Opposition Members appreciated that point.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

The Minister is being very generous in giving way. I understand her logic, but, speaking to local authorities and other agencies, one of the hardest groups to deal with is health. It is very hard to get health to work in such partnerships as it tends to bounce off. Mental health is so critical to child poverty that I ask her to think again. We can say that health “may” get involved, but it is difficult to get it to come to the table if it is not under a duty to do so.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I have explained that the Bill adequately covers the planning and delivery of mental health services. We will publish statutory guidance on part 2 and consult on the preparation of that guidance. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman will take the opportunity to look at the guidance. We can then take account of his views. With that reassurance, I hope that he will not press his amendment to a Division.

My hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North tabled amendment 73, which would add regional development agencies and learning and skills councils to the list of partner authorities. As she pointed out, RDAs have an important role to play in driving regional economic activity, increasing employment opportunities and supporting businesses through the current economic climate. Regional activity is important and sets a framework for local action.

However, following the recommendations of the review of sub-national economic development and regeneration, we are actively seeking to strengthen the role of local authorities in promoting economic regeneration, including the introduction of a new duty to conduct an assessment of local economic conditions. Local action on economic development has greater potential to have a direct impact on child poverty by focusing the efforts of partners on employment for parents, as part of economic and community regeneration in disadvantaged areas. As responsibility for economic development and funding is being actively devolved to local authorities, including RDAs as statutory partners, it would detract from that enhanced role to add an additional layer of bureaucracy, which would not necessarily add value to local decision making.

I know that my hon. Friend’s amendment is supported by London Councils. Of course, arrangements can vary in different parts of the country, depending on circumstances, and we have set up the arrangements to achieve that. I hope that the flexibility we are offering in clause 20, which would enable London local authorities to go down a slightly different route from others, is sufficient to enable her to withdraw her amendment relating to the RDAs.

In respect of learning and skills councils, we recognise that addressing the skills agenda is crucial to tackling poverty in a sustainable way. Indeed, the Bill refers to that. The LSC has not been included in the list of partners as under the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, which is currently going through the House, it is proposed that the LSC will be disbanded in 2010, with responsibility for the planning, funding and commissioning of skills provision for 16 to 19-year-olds shifting to local authorities. It is therefore not necessary to engage an additional partner.

Responsibility for funding adult skills provision will move to the new national body, the Skills Funding Agency. As the arrangements for co-ordinating adult skills provision locally emerge, local authorities may choose to use clause 20(1) to engage additional local partners such as local employment and skills boards. Consultation on the Bill demonstrated that it is important that local partners are able to deliver its requirements through existing partnership arrangements. We were therefore concerned to avoid compiling and prescribing an excessively lengthy list of partner authorities. Child poverty is a pervasive and significant issue of interest to a wide range of individuals and organisations, but the list could have become unworkable. That is why we have focused on the key influencers in local strategic partnerships, which allowed the flexibility to co-opt further partners in clause 20.

I hope that hon. Members are satisfied that, for the reasons I have set out, the current list of statutory partners is appropriate. Police forces should not be removed from the list as they are already a key partner within local strategic partnerships, but the local commissioning role of PCTs means that it is not necessary to add specific health providers such as mental health trusts. Finally, the enhanced role for local authorities in managing the skills and economic development agenda means that adding RDAs and the LSC would introduce an additional layer of bureaucracy to partnership working. I therefore urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

The Minister did not mention this, but the first thing I said was that amendment 3 was a probing amendment to tease out the Government’s thinking about the inclusion of police authorities and chief officers of police. Should the Government continue to ask the LSP to undertake a further range of different functions, we may have to revisit the question whether the LSP, as currently constituted, is always the correct body of organisations to confront every issue that the Government throw at it. I will say no more than that. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Martin Caton (Labour, Gower)

Would you like to move your amendment formally, Mr. Stuart?

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

I will speak quickly and then do so. I am grateful for the Minister’s comments about statutory guidance. If the Government persist in their current line that mental health trusts should not be included in the list of partner authorities, I hope that the guidance will provide added traction to make it likely that they will participate in a local strategy. However, I do not accept the point that the PCTs are the effective local commissioners of mental health services. I have a local mental health trust in my area that goes across more than one PCT. It is a powerful institution in its own right. It is going for foundation status. It is an effective commissioner of services and is critical to child poverty issues. Therefore, I wish to press my amendment to a vote.

Martin Caton (Labour, Gower)

The ayes have it.

Martin Caton (Labour, Gower)

I am sorry. The last time I chaired a Committee I always forgot to say, “Unlock”, and I was thinking about remembering to say that. To avoid any doubt, the noes have it. Unlock.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I want to ask the Government to say a little about clause 19(3), specifically in relation to Jobcentre Plus, which, the helpful explanatory notes tell us, is covered by the subsection. We have the list and we have heard a lot about the local strategic partnership but, if we are dealing with child poverty in an area, one of the key players must be Jobcentre Plus. How will things be different in future with Jobcentre Plus? My experience locally, and what I hear from colleagues across the House about the involvement of Jobcentre Plus at a local level—

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

So that we can have a more efficient debate, could the hon. Gentleman flesh out a little more detail about what sort of flexibilities he is looking for? Then I could respond on whether we are going to go down that path.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

Of course; the Minister is right to press me on that. I am talking about engagement, not about dismantling the whole benefits structure—it would not be appropriate to talk about that, although we might come on to it in our discussions today.

I am talking about real engagement with local authorities on what is happening in an area in respect of job creation, the skills agenda and the quality and type of courses to which Jobcentre Plus sends people. Only last week I had an e-mail from a constituent who is furious that Jobcentre Plus has sent his engineering graduate son on a wholly inappropriate course—he had less access to computer facilities to look for work than he would have had at home. That is, frankly, a waste of money and has discouraged that individual.

I am talking about a range of issues with Jobcentre Plus. How does it engage with local authorities? It is not always as good as it should be at sitting down with local authority leaders, councillors, council officers and the economic regeneration department of a local area, and getting stuck in at the local level. I visit my local jobcentre regularly. Excellent, dedicated, hard-working people work for Jobcentre Plus. My impression is that they report up to their district manager, who in my area covers the whole of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. The district managers look up to the Minister and her ministerial team, but are not as good as they could be at looking outwards in the local area. I think that part 2 of the Bill is about getting all the players—we have heard about the role of the local strategic partnership—to be fully effective at a local level.

In addition, Jobcentre Plus is not good at engaging with the voluntary sector in local areas, and in some cases it is a hindrance to effective engagement. It has stopped the co-operation that used to exist, and which still exists between other organs of the state such as social services, the probation service and health visitors. Jobcentre Plus just says, “No, we can’t signpost, we can’t do that work”. I am talking about basic things such as the provision of emergency food supplies.

I do not know what the Minister does in her constituency on a Friday night when constituents come to her and say that they have no money or food in the house. I ring up my local Salvation Army, because I know that it has food and will take it to that family over the weekend. Why can Jobcentre Plus not signpost that type of service, to tell people that it is available? It is reluctant to do that. I have engaged with the issue for about a year, and have teased it out through a series of parliamentary questions and letters to some of the Minister’s departmental colleagues.

There is great scope for that sort of partnership—working better with local authorities, the local business community, local colleges and training providers, and voluntary agencies specifically helping in that area. Such work needs to be different and better. If the Bill makes no difference and the situation continues as it is, I am not filled with hope that we will achieve the Bill’s worthy aims. I hope that fleshing out my concerns has been useful to the Minister, and I will be grateful for her response.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I am a bit frustrated with clause 19, and with part 2 of the Bill as a whole, because they do not seem to relate in any sensible way to what happens on the ground. I wish to probe Ministers more on what they think local strategic partnerships do. If the list of commissioning organisations that we have discussed is supposed to represent the bodies that sit on a local strategic partnership, I should say that it does not. The local strategic partnership that I sat on had representatives from the voluntary sector, the Churches, and other bodies that were there because in the mind of that local authority they had a role in addressing the area’s problems.

I cannot see why it is necessary to have a list in this part of the Bill at all. I think Richard Kemp said in his evidence that what was needed was not a duty and all that comes with that, including listing the people who have to co-operate, but a general encouragement for all organisations, including local and national ones, to co-operate in dealing with the child poverty strategy. That would be better.

It is also a bit strange to consider that the child poverty agenda is taken down just one avenue within a local authority. There is not just one channel. I refer Members to my speech on Second Reading, in which I listed seven strategic partnerships, of one sort or another, that the county council in my constituency has, and through which the issue of child poverty runs. The issues that that council has identified as the hotspots in its area for tackling child poverty are in many ways particular to it, and would not be the same for another local authority, even a neighbouring one. I do not see why we are restricting, trying to hem in and make incredibly bureaucratic something that we should trust local government to do. In the evidence sessions, the local government authorities gave enough evidence to show that they are already doing it, and are in many ways streets ahead of national Government, particularly in getting to grips with tackling the real effects of child poverty and producing successful outcomes.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire asked about the role of the DWP and jobcentres, as set out in subsection (3). Clearly the legislation makes a difference as it ensures that jobcentres are partner authorities, so the duties to co-operate in making the needs assessment, in setting out the strategy and in taking subsequent responsible action will move from a “can do” to a “must do”. That is a very significant change in the Bill.

We have some good experience. In parts of the country, for example, we have a work-focused services child poverty pilot in which people from jobcentres are working within Sure Start centres to engage with and help people—particularly mothers—back into work. We have just launched a school gates project to improve partnership working between schools and jobcentres, which again is to help mothers back into work. Data-sharing pilots in three local authorities—Liverpool, Kent and Leeds—test the current process for local authorities.

City strategy pathfinders are developing strategic plans to address problems in their areas. For example, in east London we are bringing together local services through pooled funding so that children’s centres, schools, youth offending teams and others are brought alongside the worklessness, skills and FE teams. We also have joint working with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. In Cornwall, a beacon authority has been joint-working with the DWP, pooling budgets and data sharing, and the £600,000 Real Choices child poverty programme. I could go on about Lancashire, Waltham Forest and so on, but I will not. Those are examples of good practice. I am perfectly well aware that good practice does not exist throughout the country, but we are going to put new responsibilities on the jobcentres and our objective is to build on those places where there is good working.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I am grateful for that and I do not doubt that there are good examples of best practice across the country. Where it is relevant to meeting some of the deprivation issues that we have been discussing, will she also refer briefly to Jobcentre Plus’s co-operation with the voluntary sector?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I must admit that I was slightly concerned by what the hon. Gentleman said on that score. As someone who used to work in the voluntary sector, I favour its involvement and co-operation with local authorities on anti-child-poverty initiatives. That seems to be rather different from what he suggested, which was that it should signpost people who phone up the DWP to the voluntary sector rather than to statutory provision. He mentioned the instance of people phoning up; in my constituency I signpost them to the crisis loans facility in the social fund, and I think that all hon. Members ought to do the same. I would be extremely concerned if he was suggesting that instead of signposting people to the social fund, which is meant to be the safety net at the very bottom of the social security system, we should divert them to the voluntary sector.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

Of course I recognise the important work that the social fund does and of course I direct my constituents there. I hope that the Minister recognises that the benefits system, comprehensive as it is with wonderful aspirations, is not perfect, and that people fall through the net of crisis loans and the social fund.

I would not be surprised if, like me, the Minister has constituents who find over a weekend that the social fund or the Jobcentre is not always able to help—perhaps because a decision maker is still looking at their case. It is fairly regular in my casework to find constituents who, for whatever reason, have no money and no food over the weekend, notwithstanding the best efforts of the social fund and the staff in the Jobcentre. In those circumstances, does the Minister not think it sensible for Jobcentre staff to have a list of voluntary organisations that could help over the weekend?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Again, I do not share the hon. Gentleman’s conception of the appropriate role of the voluntary sector.

Karen Buck (Labour, Regent's Park and Kensington North)

The point about such emergencies, which we all experience, is important. Although charitable enterprises can be vital in helping people, if I was confronted with the case of a parent and children who had no money to feed themselves over the weekend—as I have been on occasion—I would get in touch with the duty social worker and ensure that there was a guarantee of help, rather than relying on the possibility of a voluntary or charitable organisation filling the gap, however good they might be.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

My hon. Friend demonstrates immense common sense. We now direct people to the voluntary sector on things such as debt advice. However, the route to which my hon. Friend points—that of relying on the statutory services—is the proper approach. I do not think that I can add any more to what I have said.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I will come back one more time as this is an important issue. The hon. Member for Northavon often asks for numbers when talking about these issues, and he is right to do so as he wants to know the scale of the problem. I do not know whether the Minister is aware of the food bank network up and down the country. It provides the sort of assistance that I mentioned is provided by the Salvation Army and others. Last year, 24,000 people in this country went to food banks. That indicates that these are not isolated cases, and that up and down the country there are instances where such measures are needed, notwithstanding the best efforts of staff at Jobcentre Plus and the social fund, the call centres, emergency social workers and so on.

I do not for a moment suggest that we should sweep away any of the statutory provision. The first duty is for the statutory services to work well and properly. I ask the Minister to look at the evidence and the facts, and perhaps to reconsider the issue.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I know very well that the voluntary sector plays a fantastic role in this country. It innovates, provides examples of best practice and, by co-operating locally on the child poverty needs assessment and strategy, it has a significant role to play. However, my view remains that we should not rely on, co-opt or drive the agenda of the voluntary sector. It should remain what it is: voluntary and independent. I do not agree with the picture drawn by the hon. Gentleman, and I am not sure that it is strictly relevant to the clause.

Clause 20

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I beg to move amendment 4, in clause 20, page 11, line 45, leave out ‘each’ and insert ‘those’.

Martin Caton (Labour, Gower)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 5, in clause 20, page 11, line 45, after ‘authorities’, insert ‘as the authority thinks fit’.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

The amendments are about giving responsible local authorities the flexibility to achieve their statutory duties in the way that they believe is best for them. I put it to the Minister that clause 20(1)(b) is too prescriptive and smacks in part of a Government who do not trust local people to exercise accountability on their local authority through the ballot box.

I offer an analogy to explain my rationale. It would be fair enough if the task demanded by Government of a local authority or any organisation was to shift a load of bricks from one side of a building site to another. It would not be right, however, for central Government to dictate exactly how that task should be done in over-prescriptive detail. The Minister referred in earlier debates to the importance of clause 20(1)(c), which gives local authorities some flexibility, which we welcome. It is important to have the ability to include bodies that are not in the list in clause 19. My worry about subsection (1)(b) is that it might force people to waste time—to come to meetings where they might not have anything to contribute. We believe in giving more responsibility and trusting local authorities more, rather than trying to pin them down and telling them whom to work with, without any choice.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

It is also about giving local authorities a sense of ownership and empowerment to tackle these difficult issues. Rather than engage in a needless bureaucratic exercise, they should focus on the job in hand and the place in which they find themselves. My hon. Friend is right to table amendments to give that freedom and sense of empowerment to local authorities.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I do not want to labour the case for these two amendments. I have set out my concerns about wasting the time of public services. When people travel to meetings, there is a cost. If they are not at their desks, they are forgoing time and attention that they could be devoting to other areas. If they have something to contribute, they should do so and, of course, the local authority can insist on that. For instance, a local authority can say to the health services that action is needed on a health inequality, or say to the police that action is needed in a particular area. It can say to Transport for London—or whoever—that the buses are not running between where people are living and where the jobs are. That is absolutely right. However, this proposal is over-prescriptive and runs the risk of wasting public servants’ time, which I am trying to avoid.

Jamie Reed (Labour, Copeland)

I share, appreciate and commend the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to localism, which is absolutely right, but I wonder whether he shares my concern. I made the point during the evidence sessions that we have some dreadful local authorities that need a central mechanism and measurement process to ensure that they do what we ask of them.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I am delighted to welcome the hon. Gentleman as a fellow localist. My party does not have a preserve of interest in localism. I understand what he is saying but there is a different way to achieve what we both seek: partly through the ballot box and partly through measurement by results that are made public. We will come on to data sets and measuring when we reach our stand part debate. However, I would say to the hon. Gentleman that the way in which to achieve the outcome that he wants is not to be over-prescriptive, but to judge by published results. Any council that was doing badly could then experience an element of shame, and there would also be local elections and the local ballot box.

Jamie Reed (Labour, Copeland)

The method that the hon. Gentleman is outlining is helpful to us, and it would be helpful to the local authorities in question. However, I cannot help but think that it would not be helpful to the people and the children whom we are trying to help, and helping them is the purpose of the Bill.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, but to be honest I think that there is a straightforward disagreement about the best approach. I believe in accountability and people being judged by results. I believe that the approach that I have outlined is preferable, so I commend amendments 4 and 5 to the Committee.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I shall speak to amendments 4 and 5 at the same time as they are so clearly linked. I point out to the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire that, on its own, amendment 5 is ambiguous, as it proposes that authorities should be replaced

“as the authority thinks fit”.

That would mean that the amended line of the clause—line 45—would read “each of its partner authorities, as the authority thinks fit”. That has no clear meaning.

Taken in conjunction with amendment 4, however, the effect of amendment 5 would be to change line 45 from stating “each of its partner authorities, as the authority thinks fit” to “those of its partner authorities, as the authority thinks fit”. That would mean that responsible authorities would not have to promote co-operation with all the named partner authorities, which would certainly weaken the impact of these partnership arrangements.

The consultations that we undertook while preparing the Bill made it clear that local partners thought that tackling child poverty must be a shared responsibility of all key partners, rather than there being an opt-in system. It is clear that the local authority has a lead role, but other local partners must also play their part. The importance of partnership working was clearly demonstrated by the evidence that we heard from witnesses on 20 October.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

Amendment 5 is not saying that there should be no partner working at all. It proposes that the local authority should decide which of the potential partner authorities it should work with. Why is the local authority not in a position to make that judgment?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

As we discussed earlier in the sitting, we are trying to reproduce the arrangements for the local strategic partnership, because we believe that that will be a less bureaucratic approach. Consequently, we are giving local authorities the flexibility to co-opt further partners, should they wish to do so.

The Bill specifically states that partnership arrangements involve all partners but it is not prescriptive, as the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire seemed to believe, about the form that those arrangements should take. For example, the Bill does not specify attendance at a particular number of meetings. I believe that we have got the balance right in the Bill.

Only by requiring local authorities to make arrangements that will make co-operation between the authority and “each” of its named partner authorities can we be confident that the full range of individuals, organisations and bodies that can make a real and lasting difference to the lives of children in this country will be fully engaged in the task. That is why the clause is worded as it is.

Amendment 5 proposes that it would be up to the local authority to determine which local partners should be involved. Although I appreciate the need for flexibility to suit local needs, the amendment would raise questions about who should be involved. Therefore, it would weaken the local authority’s ability to involve all the necessary partners.

As it stands, the duty proposed in the clause will ensure that all local authorities and their named partners can share their knowledge and understanding, their interests and influence, and the resources that they have available to tackle the issues that affect child poverty in their local areas. That process is not about imposing new systems and structures that will divert attention and resource away from action, as the hon. Gentleman suggested—quite the opposite. The requirement is to create an impetus across the country that those who are already collaborating can take further and so that those who could do more will have the stimulus to do so.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

The Minister is makes some interesting points. Let us say that a local authority sets up a child poverty group and decides not to have a partner authority on that group. Would she consider that appropriate? It might be useful if local authorities do not start out thinking that each time they meet under the child poverty banner, they must have all the partner authorities around the table or they will in some way be failing to deliver under the Bill.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

When the Bill is passed into statute, the local authorities and partner authorities should fulfil their duties and responsibilities. It is for the leader authority to take the initiative and for all the partners to co-operate in the needs assessment and the strategy. If subsets of institutions want to concentrate on particular aspects, that seems to be perfectly sensible. However, it would not obviate the need for all the named partners under the Bill to fulfil their statutory responsibilities.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

I imagine that there would be a local area child poverty steering group. Is the hon. Lady saying, on the basis that we are considering not a subset but the overall position, that the police would need to send a representative each time, regardless of whether what was on the agenda seemed directly relevant?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

No. That was precisely what I was not saying. All those identified under clause 19 have a part to play—individually and collectively. We will work with them to ensure that their respective contributions are properly articulated, acted on and maximised.

Having had an opportunity to reflect further, I hope that the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire will withdraw amendments 4 and 5.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I listened carefully to the Minister. Notwithstanding her remarks, there is a danger that the partner authorities, knowing that they have legal responsibilities under the Bill, will feel an onus to go along to meetings when perhaps their input would not be relevant on that occasion. There is a basic difference between us, in that Conservative Members trust local authorities to achieve the results that we all want to see in the way in which they think is best and that fits in with the particular circumstances of their local area. All that we are asking for is that degree of flexibility and discretion for local authorities, so I shall press the amendment to a Division.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I beg to move amendment 6, in clause 20, page 12, line 5, leave out subsection (4).

The amendment would delete subsection (4), which refers to the Secretary of State giving guidance and requires local authorities to “have regard to” any such guidance. That phrase might appear entirely innocuous, but from my experience as a local school governor, guidance often assumes almost the status of holy writ and is virtually indistinguishable from statutory obligation. In the spirit of my previous remarks, therefore, I would like to give local authorities greater flexibility to pursue their local child poverty agendas and strategies in their own way.

As I said earlier, there is a good case for saying that all poverty is local. Depending on where in the country it occurs, different sets of circumstances trap families and communities in poverty. I have difficulty seeing how guidance given by the Secretary of State can usefully be applied in the same way from Cornwall to Dundee and from Cumbria down to Kent. I call only for local discretion and local flexibility. Local authorities will be judged on the basis of their results. They will be judged, as they should be, on how successful they are in reducing the number of children living in poverty in their area. That should be the accountability framework. We should judge by results and use comparative tables to see which councils have made progress and which have not. There is always the ballot box.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

This might pre-empt discussion on the next clause slightly, but does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is impossible to measure which local authorities are making progress on any of the targets in the Bill, as none of them is measured at local authority level?

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. When we come to a stand part debate on clause 21, I would love to engage on that subject, as I tabled a written question to the Minister a couple of days ago that he very helpfully answered and that is entirely relevant to that point. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will park that issue for one moment. As so often, he is absolutely right to raise it, but the appropriate time to debate it, as I think you would agree, Mr. Caton, is later. The thrust of my remarks is similar to that of the points that I made on amendments 4 and 5. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I do not agree with the amendment. Guidance is important. Will my hon. Friend the Minister set out what the guidance would say? Some factors that are particularly relevant to child poverty might not always be immediately evident locally, although that might sound like a contradiction in terms. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but if, for example, one sits the national statistics on poverty or low birth weight in babies—a high risk factor resulting partly from poverty—over the national profile of ethnicity, one finds a near-perfect fit. That might not always be immediately evident from local statistics.

Unfortunately, black and minority ethnic communities are not always engaged fully in either political parties or the democratic process. One need only look around the Committee to see evidence of that. Although black and minority ethnic communities are disproportionately affected by poverty, we do not have MPs from any of those communities in the Committee. Guidance from the Government to local authorities to point out what the national statistics show, and to suggest that they find ways to look at the matter, might be relevant. Of course some local authorities are particularly good at engaging with diverse communities and many can teach the Government a great deal on that. There is also flux in such communities: different communities are affected in different ways and therefore guidance can act as an important prompt—I put it no stronger—to ensure that lessons are learned.

The guidance might also raise issues about the involvement of faith communities, bearing in mind that a wide variety can engage with the issue. That might be a good way of dealing withsome of the local black and minority ethnic communities. In the Bangladeshi community in Northampton, child poverty is a major issue, and there is a real need to engage. Will my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary tell us whether the guidance will touch on those factors, or is there some other way in which black and minority ethnic communities and diverse faith communities might need to be involved in tackling child poverty?

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

It is difficult to see what guidance central Government can provide when, as we heard in the evidence sessions, local government is already actively participating in this area and is doing so in a diverse way. One of the impressive things we heard, which is mirrored, I hope, by our own experiences in our constituencies, is that local councils are tackling child poverty in a very diverse way. I hope that Ministers heard and read the comments of Kevan Collins, one of our witnesses who represented local government, who said in response to question 124 that guidance could easily be unhelpful.

That is a crucial issue. Will guidance be helpful or unhelpful? There is a huge potential for it to be unhelpful in that it runs the risk of harming and distracting from what is already being done. A good example of that is the distinction that is made between approaching child poverty on the basis of child poverty or family poverty. There is a completely different approach on the ground, and the guidance might distract from that.

I disagree with guidance as an automatic part of the Bill. There are three references to guidance in this Bill, as well as to additional regulations. It is typical of the master-servant relationship that has characterised this Government’s attitude towards local government. Will the Minister clarify what she means by guidance? Earlier in the debate she referred to statutory guidance. In my book there is no such thing as statutory guidance. It is an obligation. That is what the statutory part of it means. We need to know, as the hon. Member for Northampton, North said, what the guidance will cover. I believe that the term “light touch” has been thrown about in relation to the guidance. That is a nice term of art, but we need to bring that down to something more specific.

Finally, I refer the Committee to the evidence of Colin Green, whose words sum up many of my feelings for this clause:

“The Bill is an enabler: we do not need more micro-management.”——[Official Report, Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2009; c. 53, Q124.]

The Government have to show why this is not micro-management.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I hope that I am more successful in persuading Opposition Members that amendment 6 is unnecessary. Subsection (4) requires local and partner authorities, in co-operating to reduce child poverty in local areas, to have regard to the guidance given for that purpose by the Secretary of State. That means that if the authorities can demonstrate that different arrangements are effective, they may use those.

Opposition Members said that they were concerned that the requirement may be an unwarranted burden, but the exact opposite is the case. The publication of guidance by the Secretary of State will ensure that existing and emerging good practice will be captured and acted on across the country, thus helping local authorities and partners and removing a burden. In other words, each local authority will not have to reinvent the wheel as it carries out its duties under the Bill. There is already a great deal of good practice.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I am sure the Minister is aware that good practice is already being spread among local authorities. They talk to each other, and they also have the Local Government Association, which occasionally manages to spread good practice in a positive way.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Of course. However, the Bill is designed to address child poverty across the whole country, so it is important that we put in place an approach that is likely to work across the whole country.

Karen Buck (Labour, Regent's Park and Kensington North)

If the picture in local government is as consistently innovative and rosy as Conservative Members would have us believe, will the Minister cast light on how many local authorities of different political persuasions had developed a strategy for investigating and tackling child poverty before the performance indicators were introduced and before the Bill was produced? I suspect that the answer is none.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I do not have the answer to hand, but I hope to be inspired before I conclude.

As I was saying, there is good practice. We have three child poverty beacon councils, from which we heard in our evidence sessions, which demonstrate that local collaboration can work extremely well. There is also, as I mentioned in a previous debate, a range of child poverty pilots through which local authorities and partners are exploring, developing and delivering new and better ways of helping children to escape the corrosive effects of poverty. Guidance based on that good practice should go some way to enabling authorities and their partners to respond positively to the duties placed on them by the Bill.

As we have emphasised, it is important that there is a consistent and coherent approach across the country to tackling child poverty. We do not want to see some areas performing significantly better than others. Guidance will help to ensure consistency and coherence, by setting out what has worked hitherto and how continuing progress can best be made.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

Consistency and coherence sound attractive, but uniformity and lack of innovation are the B-sides of those words. Can the Minister reassure the Committee that guidance will not be so overwhelming and prescriptive that there is a loss of a sense of ownership by local authorities and that, although we achieve uniformity, we do so at a high price?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Of course we do not want that. The situation in my constituency in County Durham is different from that in the Financial Secretary’s constituency in Newham, which is again different from that in the constituency of the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire. There must be flexibility for local authorities to address different needs. If the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness can be a little patient, I will explain what I am driving at.

We are issuing guidance on the needs assessment, which we have circulated. It is based on the risk factors, which we know exist thanks to firm evidence about the risks of child poverty. I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not feel that we are over-prescriptive: our guidance on the needs assessment is evidence-based. I point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North that the draft that we have circulated says that matters considered in the needs assessment must include the ethnic composition of the population, because obviously, as she says, that is a factor.

When the authority and partners go on to establish the strategy, it must relate to the needs assessment—there is no point having a strategy that does not tackle the problem with which we are all trying to deal—but that is the point at which there is scope for local authorities and partners to behave in a more innovative and flexible way that relates to the differences between, for example, County Durham and South-West Bedfordshire. Our aim is not that the guidance should be a solution to all problems but that it should help to make the intentions of the legislation clear. We will work with local delivery partners in drafting the guidance to ensure that it meets the needs of both those that have made progress in the area and those that have been left behind.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I apologise for intervening on the Minister again. I am not trying to interrupt her flow; I just want to get one thing clear. If I understand correctly, she is saying that the guidance will relate to the needs assessment, but that it relates much less, or perhaps not at all, to how a local authority will then try to meet the needs identified in that assessment and tackle child poverty in its area. Am I right to understand that the local authority will not get in trouble in respect of the guidance in terms of how it tackles those significant issues in its local area?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

In my opening remarks, I pointed out that local authorities must have regard to guidance, but if they can demonstrate different effective arrangements, they may use those. We are getting the balance right.

Jamie Reed (Labour, Copeland)

In my constituency, I have established an anti-child poverty coalition involving the county council, the district councils, Sure Start, churches, businesses, police and so on. Our ambition is to beat child poverty in my constituency before 2020. I am disappointed that no one at any stage of this debate has mentioned the role of a constituency Member of Parliament in tackling the issue head-on. Does my hon. Friend share my view on that? Secondly, is there anything in the Bill—I cannot see it—to prevent me from pulling together a group of interested people to beat child poverty in my constituency before 2020?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. He demonstrates the great effectiveness of a dynamic, concerned and committed Member of Parliament, as I know he is, who thinks at all times of the concerns of his constituents. Nothing in the Bill would inhibit that sort of worthwhile activity. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire will accept that in the interest of having effective action, we cannot put all the detail in the Bill, as that would be extremely unhelpful. We are consulting on the guidance, and I would be pleased to hear his views. I hope that he feels that we are getting the balance right and will withdraw amendment 6.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I have listened to what the Minister said. Perhaps because we are nearing lunch time, I am inclined to be a bit more charitable about this amendment than I was about the other. There is an ongoing debate to be had about the issue—I will reserve our right to revisit the matter at another stage—but I welcome her offer to consult us. It is always nice to be consulted by the hon. Lady. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

It is as good a time as any for me to refer to the question raised by the hon. Member for Northavon about how we will know whether a local authority and its partners are successfully tackling child poverty in their area. I said earlier that I want local authorities to be judged on results—whether they are reducing the number of children in poverty in their area. The hon. Member for Northavon is correct in saying that, at the moment, we have only partial information on that.

If Members cast their minds back to the evidence sessions, they may remember the leader of Kent county council being asked—by the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North, I think —how many children there were in poverty in Kent. He replied straight away, “48,000”. When asked how he knew that number, he said that he had asked his officers, which is a perfectly reasonable thing for the leader of an upper-tier local authority to have done. No doubt that was the correct answer, but it is only a partial one, because in an answer to my written parliamentary question, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions replied:

“The dataset ‘Children in Families in Receipt of Out-of-work Benefits’ is currently used as a proxy to measure child poverty at the local level.”

My understanding, therefore—the Under-Secretary may wish to intervene now or respond later—is that the 48,000 figure was based on the current dataset for children in Kent and related only to children in poverty in out-of-work families. As we all know, there is an enormous amount—far too great—of in-work poverty, so the number of children in poverty in Kent is probably 100,000 or so. I do not know what the exact split is between in-work and out-of-work poverty—the hon. Member for Northavon will probably tell us shortly.

The hon. Lady went on to say in her helpful answer, for which I am grateful, that a “revised indicator” was “being developed” and that

“This will provide information on both in-work and out-of-work poverty in the local area.”

She mentioned the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People’s Services—C4EO—which is an excellent organisation. The Financial Secretary and I attended a conference in Manchester on child poverty, which was run by C4EO. It is doing fantastic work in this area and I pay tribute to it. The hon. Lady went on to say that it was developing a tool

“to help local delivery partners analyse local data relating to child poverty. This tool will be available from the end of the year.”—[Official Report, 27 October 2009; Vol. 131, c. 213-14W.]

From that answer, it is not clear to me when we are to get the new combined dataset for local authorities that will measure both in-work and out-of-work poverty in an area, which is a crucial issue.

I said a few moments ago that I want local authorities to be judged by results, but we must have accurate data. We have to know what our start point is and then we can measure progress against that in local areas, so it is not just a technical issue for us policy wonks in Committee. It goes to the heart of whether the child poverty needs assessments and the local strategies will be effective. There is nothing more effective than for a local authority to say, “We’ve got x thousand children in poverty”, then to see the reduction that is achieved and be able to measure progress. I would be grateful if the Under-Secretary enlightened the Committee on those important questions.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I cannot resist a challenge. I think the hon. Gentleman has raised an important point. When the leader of Kent county council gave his figure, I spoke to him afterwards and said, “Can you tell me where it came from? Here is my e-mail address.” I am still waiting, perhaps because it was the answer to a different question.

The hon. Gentleman has made the very important point that, based on the latest figures on households below average income, roughly half the children in poverty—[Interruption.] It is a very good guess. Roughly half of such children are classified as either “lone parent not working” or “both members of the couple not working”. There would probably be even more children in poverty if we accounted for one parent working part-time and the other not working and so on.

That raises the fundamental point that we are setting national targets based on some very specific definitions and then asking local authorities to be partners in delivering targets based on definitions that they cannot access or measure. We cannot know how many children in Kent live in households with a score of 25 on the material deprivation list, and I cannot envisage that we ever will, even with souped up sample sizes.

If we take the big survey of 40,000 or so households, split it and sub-divide it into quintiles or whatever, we will never get the figures for a small unitary local authority such as mine, South Gloucestershire. It is a real challenge to hold local authorities to account for targets when they cannot tell whether they are achieving them. The hint that we have heard in the discussion is that we will use proxies. We say, “We don’t really know how they are doing on the measures that we have set them, but here are some other measures that aren’t very different.” I have a nasty feeling that that is probably the answer, but it is a strange situation that we are in.

As for the paragon in the corner, the thrusting and dynamic Member for Copeland—I forget what the expression was, but it was something of that sort—it is tremendous to have a local initiative, as he says, but in terms of a national target, it is very difficult to know whether one is succeeding. However, it is possible to overstate the point. Clearly, as the hon. Member for Northampton, North, said, some things fit so terribly well that they do not do too badly as proxies. I do not want to keep on rambling, but there is a serious issue. If someone has a specific target but cannot measure it, they will go for the thing that they can measure. That is the worry.

In the Bill, we quite rightly say that what matters is not just cash, but material deprivation and all the rest of it. However, all that the local authorities will see is benefit receipts and cash, and that could lead them to focus on what they can see and measure in their area, and what they will probably be held to account for. They might then miss things that are equally tangible, and that we are measuring, but cannot measure so well locally. I do not know whether the Minister can elaborate on the written answer that she gave to the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire, but that exchange was very helpful. There is a genuine worry. It is essential to consider the facets of child poverty that we are discussing, and it is good that they are covered in the Bill, but the link between the national targets and local delivery is still unclear to me.

Martin Caton (Labour, Gower)

I call John Howell.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

That was rather a surprise, Mr. Caton. I was not quite ready. I will, however, make good. The clause imposes a duty on local government. I want to question why the Government have pursued the idea of a duty, rather than other means of achieving their objectives for local government. The duty relates to

“reducing, and mitigating the effects of, child poverty”.

The use of the word “effects” is interesting. We are talking about not reducing and mitigating the causes of child poverty, but reducing and mitigating the effects. For me, “effects” in that context is synonymous with symptoms. The measure therefore lacks ambition and does not move us on to doing what the Bill seeks to achieve.

For reasons that I alluded to in earlier speeches and interventions, there is a considerable mismatch between parts 1 and 2 of the Bill. In part 1, an income-based strategy is set out and in part 2, a broader role is outlined for tackling what local government does in relation to it, and the duty does not seem to fit very easily in that. It would have made sense to include in part 1 a clause on tackling and measuring the causes, or the proxy for measuring the causes of poverty. Sadly, however, that was not accepted. The question still remains: what is the value of giving local government a duty, as this clause does, rather than doing things in a different way? I admit that there is some symbolism in giving local government a duty, but it is clear from the evidence from witnesses that the duty is rather meaningless, and was seen by them as a rather heavily bureaucratic approach. For example, Catherine Fitt said:

“over the last few years...local government and its partners are engaging very positively.”

We have heard the question of what local government did before that. The answer is that it did a lot. Paul Carter’s evidence alluded to that, in respect of the results from the first round of public service agreement targets and the achievements arising from them. Richard Kemp’s evidence was even more explicit:

“Giving local government a duty would not help us”.

That is very clear, and there are two reasons for that. First, the notion that all one has to do is to create a duty and the problem is solved is not only wrong, but reflects what I call the master-servant relationship that has grown up between central and local government. I thought that Richard Kemp’s evidence was very instructive:

“You are making an assumption that a duty is necessarily a good thing but I am not convinced that it is. You can give me a duty and I can perform it well because I want to—but I would probably have done it anyway—or I can perform it to meet the minimum requirements”.

In other words it is, at best, a blunt tool, and not the rapier or stiletto that we need to tackle child poverty on the ground.

Secondly, local government is already doing much on the issue; we have heard a lot of examples of that. Paul Carter said that local government is already taking a long-term view of underlying problems, and had been taking such a view before the Bill was introduced. Kent is not alone in doing that; we can pray in aid plenty of other authorities as illustrations.

The way in which the clause imposes the duty is not dissimilar, in its high-level approach, to how the national indicator set asks and encourages councils to sign up to national indicator 116, which is the general indicator on child poverty. Most councils have not done so for very good reasons. They clearly did not think that it was a meaningful target, because it did not deliver any positive outcomes on the ground. They were much more focused on the causes of poverty and there were better indicators, with real outcomes, in the indicator set. For example, Richard Kemp said:

“In crude terms, only 45 out of about 140 local authorities have signed up to NI 116... However, 118 local authorities are doing work on NEETs, 101 on obesity in teenage schools and 107 on under-18 conceptions.”

The question remains: why impose a duty, given the existence of a national indicator set that has not been in its current form for very long? Why did the Government not use it as an alternative method? That would have been far less bureaucratic and would have still allowed for considerable flexibility.

During the summer, in preparation for the Committee, I did some research and spent some time asking my county council about the issue. Its attitude was that the Bill was largely meaningless and potentially dangerous for the reasons that we have mentioned—the Bill cuts across a lot of what it does. That was summed up in the question—I think that I asked it—to Richard Kemp on whether the duty would make a difference. He replied:

“So my response to your earlier question about what we would do differently as a result of the Bill is, ‘Not necessarily anything at all’”.——[Official Report, Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2009; c. 50-59, Q121-32.]

What does the clause deliver? What does the duty deliver? Where is the additionality? Why not stick with a tried and tested method that has proved to have an impact on local authorities, particularly in holding them to account?

Subsections (5) and (6) use the creation of pooled funds as the way to approach the issue. I am extremely glad to see that the measures are permissive. I hope that Ministers know people’s feelings about how pooled funds operate. The fact that many local authorities have moved on from the pooled fund method to the aligned fund method says an awful lot about the rather old-fashioned and clunky way in which the clause introduces the duty, and about how this part of the Bill tackles the whole issue of local government involvement in child poverty.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire asked whether we have adequate statistics at a local level to enable local authorities to take forward the needs assessment and strategies. I would like to embark on a paean of praise for the British civil service, which has enabled me to provide the hon. Gentleman with information on the data set that is totally consistent with the parliamentary answer that I gave him a few weeks ago. I will explain the point for the benefit of other members of the Committee who might not have been following the detail of the debate.

The current data set for children in families that are in receipt of out-of-work benefits is used as a proxy to measure child poverty at local level. The fact that it is a proxy does not mean that it is not a helpful measure for local authorities, or that they cannot make an effective contribution to tackling child poverty. The targets that we set are national, not local. It is important that local authorities have the data set to inform their needs assessment and the work that they do at local level.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

The national target on material deprivation is children having a bedroom to themselves once they are 11 if they are of different sex. If the local authority is being measured on a proxy that has nothing to do with any of that, where is the impetus on the local authority to deliver the national targets? Where is the connecting rod? It is not in the figures.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I was going on to say that the current data set is the basis for indicator 116, which is used by local government. A revised indicator is currently being developed to measure child poverty at local level, and that will include those children who live in low-income, working families, as well as those in workless families. The revised indicator will be the proportion of children living in families that are in receipt of out-of-work benefits, or working families whose income is below 60 per cent. of median income. That will provide information on both in-work and out-of-work poverty in the local area. I anticipate that the data will be available at both local authority and, significantly, ward level, and that they will be produced annually. Data will shortly be available for 2006-07.

Work is under way at the moment with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs on revising that indicator. When it is finalised, it will be put on the Department for Communities and Local Government website. I have not got an exact date, but I assure members of the Committee that it will be before Royal Assent. Therefore, before the duties on local authorities come into effect, we will have the data.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

With the greatest respect, I simply do not believe what the Minister has said. The data in the Bill are based on household income. That is not the unit that claims benefit, but everybody under the same roof. The data available to HMRC are on the income of the benefit unit—the narrower definition of income. The Minister said that the data would be available at ward level. The sample used by the family resources survey is one household in 1,000, so a ward of 3,000 households would have three or four people in a sample. How can it possibly be true that data on 60 per cent. of median household income will be available, when data on household income are not collected for benefit purposes? Will the samples be big enough to have ward-level data relative to the national targets, which are on household data based on sample surveys?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

For relative low income, the local measure is NI 116. It is available at local authority and lower super output area level. On material deprivation, the local measure is the index of multiple deprivation and the income deprivation affecting children index. As for absolute low income, local partners can consider that as part of their needs assessment. The hon. Gentleman is taking us into an extremely technical area, and that is not good use of the Committee’s time.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I hear what the Minister says. We have some sympathy for the hon. Lady because we are putting her on the spot with some technical issues, perhaps at an unexpected point in the Bill. However, the issues are vital. Part 2 is an important part of the Bill, one that I very much welcome in general. Local authorities bring something important to the table but, if we are not clear about the measurement criteria, if they are not fair, are not accurate and not reasonably all-embracing, we will get into a muddle. Will the hon. Lady write a further note to the Committee on the matter? We need a little more clarity and perhaps even more work on top of the excellent work to which she alluded, so that we know the basis on which local authorities will have to be judged.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Of course the hon. Gentleman can ask for that. When I said that our discussion was technical, I was not arguing that it was not important. However, such matters are better handled in writing, and I shall be happy to write to the Committee about them.

The hon. Member for Henley talked about the duties being placed on local authorities. The purpose of the Bill is to reduce and mitigate the effects of child poverty. That means that the partnership must tackle the causes of child poverty and mitigate the effects of child poverty. No one could object to that. It is the correct approach. Of course, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that local government is already doing a lot, but the important thing is that the Bill provides a framework to ensure that action is taken in all areas.

I remind the hon. Gentleman that such issues form only part of central Government’s relationship with local government, not the whole of it. He might not be satisfied by my assurances, but I remind him of the evidence that we heard from the local authorities on 20 October. Catherine Fitt said that

“the reason for having the Bill is to ensure consistency across the country...We are very aware that it is no good solving the problem in just one part of the country, because whether a child’s needs are met should not be dependent on where they live.”

Richard Kemp said that

“enhancing the duty of our partners to co-operate with us around a specific thing would”

help us.

Kevin Collins said:

“What I find exciting is the idea that we are looking towards a collective effort on the issue...It must be a collective effort. It must be about how well people are doing to create the conditions that will reduce levels of child poverty...It is not about passing the buck to local government; it is about collective effort.”——[Official Report, Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2009; c. 50-51, Q121-134.]

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

May I take the Minister back to the regional issue? If we looked at child poverty on a regional basis as opposed to a national basis, there would be a very different picture in London, which must impact on quite a few members of the Committee. Will the hon. Lady comment on the rationale for looking at the national picture as opposed to the regional picture? For example, local government in London will be dealing with child poverty figures based on a national assessment when, in fact, if it were assessed on a London-only basis, a much greater percentage would be seen to be in relative poverty. Is there a risk that a national picture would do less as a result?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I do not believe so. We have introduced the Bill to tackle child poverty throughout the whole country, and we make it clear in part 2 that we do not believe that central Government have all the answers. We want a partnership with local authorities, where they can do best. We have made it clear in clause 20 that in specific cases local authorities can co-opt further partners, such as those suggested by the hon. Gentleman. I hope that, with those reassurances, hon. Members will agree to the clause.

Clause 21

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 21, page 12, line 26, after ‘assessment’, insert ‘including an assessment of—

(i) job creation, and

(ii) family resilience’.

Martin Caton (Labour, Gower)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 72, in clause 21, page 12, line 26, at end insert

‘including the levels of benefit and tax credit take up among the eligible populations’.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

Clause 21 is an important clause; it deals with the local child poverty needs assessment. I shall speak first to amendment 7, which is in my name and that of my hon. Friends the Members for South-West Hertfordshire and for Billericay, and then touch on amendment 72, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Regent’s Park and Kensington, North.

I want to focus, in relation to amendment 7, on the issues of job creation and family resilience. I shall not repeat what I said when I tabled an amendment to clause 8 along the same lines, with respect to economic enterprise, which my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness has drawn attention to. When local authority leaders and chief executives spoke in our witness sessions about dealing with child poverty, the first thing on which they all alighted was an increase in economic activity in their areas. If I were to sum up what we need to do above all to beat child poverty, I would put it in four words—more and better jobs. In other words, more people in work, and more people in higher-paid work.

I understand, of course, issues such as barriers to work, child care, flexible and part-time working, and acquiring the skills to get into jobs, but when we boil things down, those issue bring us to the heart of the Bill—the balance between what we think the benefits system will do through out-of-work benefits, and so on, and the part that we expect enterprise and wealth creation to play in defeating child poverty. This is my second attempt to have that aspect of the matter included in the Bill. I make no apologies for that.

In my experience, local economic regeneration does not get the attention that it deserves in local authorities—even in local authorities that recognise its importance and take it seriously—because it is not regarded as a core or key public service, in the way that education, social care, housing or transport are. Everyone is very clear that those are the things that the council does. It provides housing, mends potholes in the roads, looks after your granny when she gets ill, and educates your children. We all know that, but what is the role of the council in attracting new businesses to the area or helping the businesses already there to expand and grow?

I consider regeneration to be incredibly important. It will be vital in helping to drag the country out of the terrible, horrible recession that we are going through. The Government, of course, have a role to play in that, but local authorities have an important role. I have for months been vocal as unemployment in my area has, sadly, risen, and have said that local economic regeneration should be at the top of the council’s priorities.

The sustainable communities plan that has been imposed on certain parts of the country in relation to the need for extra housing growth includes targets for the creation of extra dwellings and jobs, but the emphasis—the drive from the Government offices—seems to be on housing targets. I hear relatively little about what is being done to create the jobs needed for a genuinely sustainable community, so that the people in the new houses also have work. That is an incredibly important area that needs the help and focus of a mention in the Bill. The Government should make it clear to local authorities that the Bill is not just about public services, vital as they are in getting people out of poverty and helping parents to do better, but about good old-fashioned wealth creation, building bigger businesses, providing more and better jobs and enabling people to get into them.

I am aware that the challenge of getting into work from being out of work is huge. The move from not working and being on benefits into full-time work is an enormous step—sometimes almost a step too far that many people are not able to make in one leap. In relation to the creation of jobs, I was struck by some of the proposals discussed at a reception yesterday about the community allowance. I do not know whether other Committee members were able to attend. When the Minister responds to this part of the debate she will refer to the proposal—it is to be trialled by the Government in north-east Lincolnshire, Tameside near Manchester and the Isle of Wight—to extend the disregard for people on benefit, so that they can work up to 15 hours a week on the minimum wage without having benefit withdrawn. From April next year people on incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance will be able to earn £92 a week without having benefit withdrawn. The Government have committed to that and to the three pilots we learned of yesterday evening. I welcome that initiative which is on the right lines, although there is further to travel and more to be done.

When getting people off a life on benefits—if they remain on benefits, we know that their children will live in poverty—these mini-jobs are an important way to help people into work. They may be very local with little need to travel and may be provided by community organisations, as proposed in the excellent community allowance document.

One other matter that is relevant to amendment 7 in the interaction of the benefits system with people in work is the informal economy. People may be in work but are not captured by data and do not have any involvement with the benefits system. The Financial Secretary will be familiar with an organisation called Community Links, and its national arm Links UK, which is actively involved in his constituency. I was struck when I met its representatives recently and they told me of a meeting they had in Salford with 30 young people aged between 15 and 25, who were not in education, employment or training. Some 23 out of 30 were involved in the informal economy and not receiving any benefits. We need to look at the community allowance proposals, mini-jobs and what is happening outside the benefits system, working tax credit, child tax credit and so on. Why are so many of our young people—23 out of those 30 young people in Salford—working in the informal economy?

Robert Key (Conservative, Salisbury)

I remind the Committee that with this we are considering amendment 72, in clause 21, page 12, line 26, at end insert

‘including the levels of benefit and tax credit take up among the eligible populations’.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

Good afternoon, Mr. Key. May I be the first to welcome you to the last sitting on the last day of our deliberations on this very important Bill? It is good to have you back with us.

Before lunch, I had been speaking to the first part of amendment 7 about the central importance of job creation being at the heart of local authorities’ quest to eradicate child poverty in their area, and I now want to move on to the second part of the amendment, which deals with family resilience.

You will be relieved to hear, Mr. Key, that I do not intend to go over the ground that I covered when we discussed family matters on a prior amendment, but I would like to add a bit of new material to support why I think that proposed new sub-paragraph (ii) in amendment 7 could usefully come into clause 21. I shall start, if I may, by quoting from a document that I have been sent by Relate, which I believe may be one of the organisations to which the Financial Secretary referred when he said that the Government give

“£7 million to third-sector organisations that work with such families”.——[Official Report, Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 29 October 2009; c. 242.]

I have a strong suspicion that Relate may be one of them.

Relate states, perhaps unsurprisingly from its point of view:

“Relationship breakdown is a key cause of child poverty. Local Authorities cannot tackle child poverty without tackling relationship breakdown.”

It goes on to make several points on the same theme. It states:

“Preventing relationship breakdown wherever possible, and facilitating responsible post-separation parenting increases the likelihood that households will have at least one salary coming in”,

and, as we have said many times in this Committee, work is the best route out of poverty, so it is obviously important. Relate also discusses the

“large number of non-resident parents contributing neither income nor care”

as far as their children are concerned.

When we talk about relationships, it is important to remember that post-separation, relationships can be better or worse for the children. If they are better, they can have a positive impact on income and dealing with child poverty. Relate goes on to make several suggestions about where work on that area could be done. It talks about children’s centres, work with primary care trusts and referrals from general practitioners.

The hon. Member for Northavon was correct when he said in our discussions last week that he believed that I was involved with such organisations in my constituency. In fact, last Thursday evening, I went from our second sitting to meet the director of children’s services for my local authority, so that I could introduce her to a voluntary group in my constituency that is hoping to work in that area with the local authority.

I have done some research on the background of the Ministers, and I believe that I am right in saying that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, worked for the Children’s Society in a prior life. I am sure that she has avidly read the excellent publication, “A Good Childhood”, which was brought out by the society. She will have noted, as I have, at the top of page 22, the fact that children rate more highly than their parents do the importance of good relationships in a family and trying to avoid family breakdown. We know that, from a child’s perspective, that is incredibly important.

The last organisation that I would like to pray in aid when talking about the second part of amendment 7 is an excellent one: the Bristol Community Family Trust, which is not far from the constituency of the hon. Member for Northavon. It manages to reach one in three new mothers in Bristol—well over 900 mothers a year—and mothers and fathers, with its relationship course, “Let’s Stick Together”. All that is done in a non-stigmatising, non-moralising way. It is not about hitting anyone over the head; it is not about telling people that they do not have perfect lifestyles or relationships. As I said last week, it is all about giving people the skills and support to make a success of their lives. I agree with Relate that it can have a critical impact on child poverty.

The other amendment in the group—not in my name but that of the hon. Member for Regent’s Park and Kensington, North—is amendment 72, which adds to the clause consideration of

“the levels of benefit and tax credit take up among the eligible populations”.

That is an important point. The facts show that if every benefit and tax credit to which families of children living in poverty are entitled were taken up, at a stroke 400,000 would be taken out of poverty; that is a significant figure. That would obviously help the Government and all of us to move a long way towards reaching the child poverty targets. The hon. Lady is on to something. The Government run take-up campaigns across the benefit system for all groups, and they would clearly have a significant impact on the issue that we are considering. For that reason, I generally support the hon. Lady’s amendment.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

Good afternoon, Mr. Key. I would like to say a brief word about amendment 72 and then come back to amendment 7. Amendment 72 highlights the importance of take-up. It is vital that where the state has identified a level of income to which families with children are entitled, they receive that entitlement. The key method of supporting low-income families with children—those with whom we are most concerned in the Bill—is the child tax credit, so I was surprised to see in the households below average income statistics the figures for families with children and their receipt of child tax credits. Table 4.4 shows that of all 12.8 million children in the country, only 60 per cent. are in families receiving child tax credit. That suggests that take-up might be a significant issue. While it is true that child tax credit does not apply to the entire income scale—it cuts off at about £58,000—that fact knocks out only about the richest 10 per cent. or so of families with dependent children.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I am sorry to intervene, but could the hon. Gentleman say that again, please?

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

The whole thing? I was quoting a figure from table 4.4 of the households below average income report, page 65. It categorises children according to the benefits that their parents receive. It says that of the 12.8 million children in Britain, 60 per cent. are in families receiving child tax credit. I would assume that if every entitled family received the tax credit, the figure would be about 90 per cent. We know that there is a slight lack of take-up by case load in particular, which one might have thought would result in a figure of 80, 78, or 75 per cent., or whatever. I was startled when I looked at the figures to see 60 per cent., because that implies that around a third of families who are entitled to child tax credit are not getting it. That is a higher number than I have seen before. I am starting with this point to give the Minister time to reflect on it. Why are up to a third of those entitled to child tax credit not getting it? Amendment 72 flags up the importance of take-up and, if I understand that figure correctly, there is an important gap in the system.

To come back to amendment 7 and what should be included in the regulations on the local child poverty needs assessment, my feeling on the point about job creation is that it is almost impossible to imagine a local child poverty needs assessment that did not take account of the need for jobs. It is inconceivable that one could have such an assessment and strategy that did not take jobs into account, so sub-paragraph (i) of amendment 7 is perhaps unnecessary.

I want to say a word, however, about family resilience. In our earlier debates, the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire would perhaps have felt that those of us on the Committee who took a different perspective from him were simply refusing to accept something that was blindingly obvious and which was staring us in the face. Given that he might anticipate being on the other side of the Committee as a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions in six months’ time, it is worth probing his reasoning a little further.

The hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out that children of lone parents are twice as likely—that is how it looks from the figures, but they are certainly significantly more likely—to be in poverty than children in two-parent families. From that, he infers the need for amendment 7, which would include family resilience in the Bill, but I want to give him one example of why we might reach the wrong policy conclusion if we approach the issue in that way.

Let us suppose that young women with low educational attainment and low aspirations are more likely to have children young and outside a stable couple relationship, which means that they are then more likely to become lone parents and to be in poverty. They are likely to be in poverty partly because their low educational attainment will mean that any job that they get might not be very good and might be low paid, and if they have young children, they will, of course, be in poverty anyway. The problem, as it were, is the low educational attainment, not lone parenthood per se, although that clearly makes life more difficult. The policy response to such young women is not couple therapy or Relate, but education, although perhaps the response would involve parenting classes for those women’s parents and all sorts of other things.

That is just one example, and I will not labour the point, because we need to make progress. What I am trying to say to the hon. Gentleman—I want to call him my hon. Friend because I think that he is sincere in what he is saying—is that just because someone in one group is more likely to be poor than someone in another group, we should not think that the title of that group tells us everything that we need to know about them. Clearly, we want to keep stable couples and parents together and we want to help people make healthy relationships, but if our goal is to tackle child poverty, we have to see the big picture—why do people become lone parents?

The other thing that we need to remember is that lone parenthood is not principally about married couples splitting up, because most lone parents have never been married. We have a whole set of policy responses for young women who are lone parents and who have never been married, and we have a set of responses for divorced people, people who have had casual relationships and ex-cohabitees. Lone parenthood is linked with poverty, but talking just about family resilience makes it sound as though family resilience is the key to unlocking everything. However, lone parenthood has diverse causes, and there are diverse policy responses. Supporting couple relationships is a good thing to do, but it is perhaps a smaller part of the overall picture than the hon. Gentleman’s simple statistical correlation might lead him to conclude. That is all that I want to communicate.

Both the issues in the amendment are important, but I am not sure that they need spelling out in the Bill. I would, however, be interested to hear about take-up, because the shortfall on child tax credit is apparently rather large, so it should be a focus for action by local authorities.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

May I begin by saying what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr. Key?

I want to begin this mini-debate on amendments 7 and 72 by saying something about the importance of job creation. To be honest, I find it totally astonishing to be on the receiving end of the implied criticism that the Government have not paid sufficient attention to job creation in their range of policies. Job creation does not appear as one of the factors in the clause because the provisions are about how, not what.

I draw the attention of the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire to the vast amount of work being done on job creation. First, for example, we have the working neighbourhoods fund, which was introduced in April 2008 and which consists of a £1.5 billion three-year settlement. It is distributed to the 61 local authorities with the worst concentrations of worklessness, but the Conservative party opposes it.

Then, there is the new future jobs fund, which is worth £1 billion. It aims to create 150,000 new jobs. Again, the Conservative party opposes it. Then, there are apprenticeships. We have provided an £11 million package to create 3,000 new apprenticeship opportunities. Again, the Conservative party opposes it. The Conservative party has opposed the flexible new deal, local employment partnerships, which are helping 250,000 people into work, and routes to work, which will help 50,000 long-term unemployed young people to access existing jobs.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

I do not want to pre-empt anything that anyone else might say, but I wonder whether the Minister might get back to the amendment.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Earlier, we discussed whether we should have a specific reference to regional development agencies in the Bill. Both Opposition parties say that they want to close down the RDAs, which have been an absolute engine of job creation in the regions. David Blanchflower, the former member of the Monetary Policy Committee, said that the unemployment rate would be 5 million higher if the Conservative party’s plans were implemented. Opposition Members really need to start thinking about these issues in a clearer and more constructive manner.

Amendments 7 and 72 relate to clause 21, which sets out the requirement for local authorities and their partners to prepare and publish a needs assessment. That forms the basis of the joint local child poverty strategy, which must be published under clause 22. Clause 21(2) and (3) give the Secretary of State the power to make regulations that may prescribe the contents of the needs assessment.

In amendment 7, hon. Members suggest that the regulations made under clause 21 should require local authorities and their partners to consider job creation and family resilience. We heard from witnesses on 20 October about the important work that local authorities and their partners can carry out to tackle child poverty. It is clear that supporting and improving outcomes for families and working with local employers on the availability of jobs in their areas and the removal of barriers to parental employment are important elements of effective local child poverty strategy.

Although those elements have a vital role, we also heard that we must not set our partners in local government an impossible task. For the purposes of the needs assessment, we must ensure that we do not impose undue burdens by asking local authorities and their partners to measure issues on which they do not have access to data and which they cannot measure. The issues as framed and as highlighted by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire are complex, and local authorities will not be in a position to measure them directly.

I turn now to the hon. Gentleman’s remarks on family resilience. I am glad that he has read the report from the Children’s Society, but I hope that he read in the appendix the acknowledgment to the person whose idea it was to set up the inquiry into the condition of childhood. The point about that excellent piece of work by the society is that it looks at things from the child’s perspective and offers a complete picture of child well-being, while the Bill is about child poverty, and they are not the same issue.

Let me return, however, to the issue of parenting and resilience. In 2007, a report on parenting and resilience commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation described family resilience as a complex concept that refers to a family’s ability to manage in difficult circumstances and to achieve outcomes that are better than anticipated given the pressures that the family face. The report indicates that resilience is difficult to measure and that approaches vary to child resilience, parental resilience and family resilience. It is not clear how a local authority or its partners would measure the concept as set out in the amendment.

Again, the hon. Gentleman takes an issue—on this occasion, family resilience—asserts that it is important and says that it should therefore be in the Bill. The remarks made by the hon. Member for Northavon on that matter were eminently sensible. The problem that lone parents face is worklessness. The hon. Gentleman might know that there is a 55 per cent. chance that a child in a lone parent family is living in poverty, if their parent is out of work. For a child living with a workless couple, the chance increases to 68 per cent. I wish to draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the fact that it might not be the family’s status but the other things going on in that family’s life that are significant.

If something is not in the Bill, that does not mean that it is not important, nor that the Government are not paying attention to it. The Department for Children, Schools and Families has a number of programmes that support families in which there has been family breakdown. It has £5 million for pilots dealing with support for separated parents. Over the next two years, we are providing £7 million strategic funding to a number of third sector organisations that work directly with families experiencing relationship conflict, and we have provided £3 million to third sector organisations such as Relate. We have just announced an increase in the number of family intervention projects. All those things are going on outside the context of the Bill, and I therefore urge the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire not to confuse something that is important with something that needs to be in the Bill. Another institution that we have established, and which provides support to families, is Sure Start. The Conservative party, of course, is not committed to maintaining the level of funding for Sure Start either.

I shall return to the draft regulations, which we have made available to the Committee. They state that, alongside the other risk factors and drivers of child poverty, the needs assessment will require local authorities to consider the level of both in and out-of-work poverty in their locality, and assess the barriers to parental employment. The needs assessment will also set out information about family size and structure, and require local partners to assess the well-being of children in poverty in relation to each of the five Every Child Matters outcomes. In that way, the needs assessment will identify the employment and family support needs in the local area. We will, of course, consult on the regulations before they are laid.

My hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North is right to highlight in amendment 72 the importance of ensuring that parents take up all the benefits and tax credits to which they are entitled.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Apart from being concerned about the take-up of child tax credit, I am also extremely concerned about the take-up of the child care element of it. That used to be a separate tax credit—the child care tax credit—but it is now a child care element of other tax credits. In the Treasury Committee, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs representatives were not able to say what that take-up was, even though there had previously been problems with low take-up. Will my hon. Friend the Minister say a bit more about that, and indicate whether the Government might be able to provide some figures, if not now, at some later stage? The ability to pay for child care is absolutely critical if parents, particularly single parents, are to get work.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Northavon have raised the take-up of tax credits, and my hon. Friend is right that that is as important as the take-up of benefits. The latest estimates that we have are for 2007-08, and suggest that take-up of child tax credit is 81 per cent., rising to 92 per cent. for households with incomes of less than £10,000. This is a phenomenally high take-up compared with, for example, the family income supplement, which is the benefit that was aimed at the in-work poor 20 years ago.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I am grateful to the Minister for that figure. She will know that take-up is measured in two ways: the proportion of the money that is claimed and the proportion of people who claim. Could she clarify whether her 81 per cent. or 90 per cent. numbers are expenditure-based figures, in other words amounts of money? Does she have the case load figures and can she explain the discrepancy between the 60 per cent. in the household below average income figures and the sorts of figures she is quoting?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I will have to write to the hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] I will write to the Committee on that point.

I want to say something about what we are doing to improve take-up in cities, as it is important. We set up the take-up task force chaired by Sir Trevor Chinn, which published its report in the summer. Hon. Members will no doubt have had an opportunity to look at that. In essence that report proposes a more joined-up approach to encouraging take-up. One thing we are doing is piloting the placement of HMRC advisers in Sure Start children’s centres to promote take-up and reduce error in tax credit claims. We are also piloting raising the childcare element of the children’s tax credit to 100 per cent—in most places it is 80 per cent.—to see what impact that has.

My hon. Friend the Member for Regent’s Park and Kensington, North was not here to speak to her amendment, but I wanted to address those points because they have been raised by other hon. Members. I hope that the Committee will agree that it is important to leave the specific detail of the issues that the needs assessment must cover to regulations, rather than insert them in the Bill.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Will my hon. Friend deal with the point about the take-up of the child care element which the HMRC reps were not able to answer? Or will she undertake to write to the Committee? It is a specific element and its take-up has been heavily criticised. Nobody quite knows why, on the most recent questioning, HMRC could not even provide the figures. Will my hon. Friend look into that and let us know, as it is such a key issue when it comes to tackling child poverty?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Of course I will be happy to look into it. If the information is available I will supply it in the letter to the Committee that covers the take-up questions.

In conclusion, I hope that the Committee will agree that it is important that the requirements in the needs assessment regulations must be deliverable by local authorities and their partners, but that the issues of family support and employment, including take-up of benefits and tax credits, are already covered by the draft regulations. I hope that the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire is reassured that I have presented adequate draft regulations to the Committee that meet his concerns and so will withdraw his amendment.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I would like to respond to a number of points made in the debate. I should like to reassure the hon. Member for Northavon that I recognise that low educational attainment and aspiration are fundamental to the issue we are discussing, as is the prospect of work in terms of men whom women may want to partner or marry. Job creation and family resilience are closely connected from that point of view. My proposal would work alongside those two areas.

I am sorry that the Minister responded in a semi-hostile way. I did not fully understand her logic. She said that there were a number of important areas but that did not mean that they should be in the Bill. That logic slightly escapes me. There is perhaps an argument the other way. If something is important, then perhaps it should be in the Bill. She mentioned a number of issues and made a number of accusations, to which I need to respond. She talked about the new deal. The fact is that there are many critics of the new deal in her own party. If we examine its effectiveness—whether it has provided value for money for the taxpayer and done the best possible job for the people who have been through it—and if we look at the churn, it is clear that we should have higher aspirations. As taxpayers we should be demanding slightly more for our money. That is where our thoughts on welfare reform are heading, and I thought that that was where the Government were heading as well.

On apprenticeships, the Minister may have missed our announcements recently in our “Get Britain Working” programme. We are committed to providing even more apprenticeships. We recognise that they are important. She is also right that my party is not a fan of regional development agencies. When I referred to them this morning, I was careful to include any organisations that might follow them. We, perhaps like the Liberal Democrats, want a more local form of economic regeneration. In my own area—the east of England—we have little in common even with the Cambridge economy, and certainly not with East Anglia’s. There are arguments for localising the important work of economic regeneration more.

As for Sure Start, I am sorry that the hon. Lady repeated her accusations. They were tried by her party in the recent Norwich, North by-election, but the voters gave their verdict on them. She is not correct in what she says about my party’s policy on Sure Start. We have significant plans for children’s Sure Start centres up and down the country.

Jamie Reed (Labour, Copeland)

That statement is at distinct odds with a recent Westminster Hall debate, when a Conservative Front Bencher said nothing of the sort.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

I did not quite catch what the hon. Gentleman said, but, as my colleagues have said, we have significant plans for the health visitor network and we want to do a number of important things for children’s centres.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Is not the hon. Gentleman’s party proposing to divert possibly up to 30 per cent. of the resources currently expended on Sure Start into the health visiting service? How can he suggest that he can maintain the current network of Sure Starts and take out such a large chunk of the funding?

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

There are questions as to how the budget is best used in Sure Start centres. Ministers seem to imagine that the only way to spend money effectively is in the way that they are spending it. The Minister talked about Sure Start centres and I have said what I wanted to say on that. Repeating allegations about other parties’ priorities is not helpful.

I have listened to the debate and I will not press amendment 7 to a Division. We have voted on similar areas already, so I cannot see that it would add much value. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 24

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I beg to move amendment 63, in clause 24, page 14, line 7, leave out from ‘of’ to ‘section’ in line 8.

I will not detain the Committee for long. The amendment is and always was intended to probe an issue that was covered in some detail this morning. I wish to illustrate the difficulties that were raised particularly by the local government representatives at their evidence session. There is a problem in being able to show the relevance of the target that the amendment would delete in the local government context. We considered that in some detail this morning in relation to Paul Carter’s evidence and the difficulty over the 48,000 children. We discussed it in terms of proxy targets, which covered quite a lot of the issue. It will still be useful to give the Minister the opportunity to justify a little more clearly than she did this morning the relevance of the target to local government officers, who succinctly expressed the difficulties of meeting it.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr. Key. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Henley for bringing the Committee’s attention to this point. In part 2, the definition of child poverty is different from the one that applies in part 1, which includes the duties on the Government. The definition in part 2 is slightly narrower to exclude the persistent poverty target, but it includes the relative low income target, which uses the figure of 60 per cent. of median income.

As we heard from the experts in the evidence session on 20 October, that target is one in which the key method of achievement tends to be through the tax and benefits system. The evidence given by Richard Kemp from the Local Government Association is helpful. He argued that local authorities might have a role in safeguarding communities and preparing for new industries and new opportunities. However, he said that

“there are other areas—which might rightly be in the Bill—where you think that you have given us a duty to do something, but I will not be able to have any effect on it because those levers are outside my control. That is why we concentrate on the areas where we do have control.”——[Official Report, Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2009; c. 71-72, Q152.]

As we discussed in this morning’s debate about duties and what local authorities can do, the 60 per cent. target—I am not suggesting that it is not valuable or that it is not important for the Government—poses practical difficulties for local authorities. To put it another way, Councillor Kemp referred to the levers outside his control. Given that the Bill sets an absolute low income target and a combined low income and material deprivation target in clause 24—those targets apply to local authorities—what levers do local authorities have that apply to the relative low income target, but do not apply to the absolute low income target or the combined low income and material deprivation targets? What does the clause 2 target in clause 24 add to the Bill that cannot otherwise be achieved, given what local authorities can practically do? We all recognise that local authorities have a big role to play, but it is not clear how local authorities, as opposed to central Government, can deliver that target.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Let me first address the remarks made by the hon. Member for Henley, who suggested removing the reference to the relative low income target from clause 24(3). The clause sets out the definition of child poverty that covers the needs assessment and local strategy. Subsection (2) states:

“A child is to be taken to be living in poverty if the child experiences socio-economic disadvantage”.

Subsection (3) provides that households experiencing socio-economic disadvantage include those experiencing relative or absolute low income and material deprivation. However, the definition in the clause is not limited to those measurements, and local authorities may choose to use additional measurements to determine levels of socio-economic disadvantage in their area. It is not immediately clear what the hon. Gentleman intends by his amendment, as it would not lessen the breadth of socio-economic disadvantage. I understand that he is interested in the flexibility that the definition in clause 24 affords to local partners in assessing child poverty and taking action to address it, particularly in relation to raising family income.

Local authorities and their partners understand their communities and are in a position to reach them in a way that central Government cannot. They have a clear role in raising family income and tackling child poverty, by driving economic regeneration and neighbourhood renewal, providing high-quality education in early years services, administering financial help such as housing and council tax benefits for families on low incomes, encouraging families to take up financial support, and joining up national and local partners to provide personalised skills and employment support.

This morning we discussed the measurements to be used at local level, so I do not need to delay the Committee significantly on that. I made it clear that there were a range of measures, such as NI 116, the relative low income child poverty indicator, the national indicator set, and the index of multiple deprivation. Those measures cover child poverty and the range of risk factors associated with it. Persistent poverty is not a narrow definition, and I believe that we are consistent in the two parts of the Bill.

During the evidence session, the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire mentioned the relative income measure, and said that he thought that it was not relevant at a local level. I do not understand how something can be relevant at a national level if it is not relevant at the aggregation of a lot of local levels.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way as she referred to a point that I raised during the evidence session. The evidence that we received suggested that local authorities could play a role, but that it would be difficult for them to focus on the 60 per cent. target—the relative low income target—as they do not have the levers to do that. They have the levers to focus on severe poverty and more general issues, which could be swept up in some of the other targets. I asked that question because that was where the evidence was taking us.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I think that that pulls me back to my first point, which is that national performance is an aggregation of the local performances.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I will try to make this clearer. The difference between national Government and local government is that local government has some levers, to use Councillor Kemp’s word, while the national Government have other levers. The evidence of Councillor Kemp suggested that the levers available to local government did not lend themselves to the 60 per cent. target, but rather to other targets.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is not quite right. All the levers that are pulled—to use the Heath Robinson metaphor—will, we hope, have an impact on the income measures. Those could be actions taken at local authority level, such as job creation, or things done at national level, such as on child tax credit take-up. All those measures will have an impact. It could be that the levers in the hands of central Government are more finely attuned, but it is not true to say that things done by local government will not have just as much impact on income levels. If they did not, there would be no point to part 2 of the Bill.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

Will the Minister explain, therefore, why clause 24 provides a separate definition of child poverty? Why not just refer to clauses 2 to 5?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I will come back to that, if the hon. Gentleman will let me.

The hon. Gentleman referred to subsection (2), which states:

“A child is taken to be living in poverty if the child experiences socially economic disadvantage”,

and asked why we should include that in the Bill. By doing so, we can promote activity with local authorities that goes beyond the targets, which is something that he has promoted on many occasions—both for children in the looked-after sector, who are often perceived to be at the bottom of the pile, and for families who might not fall under a financial limit, but whose level of material well-being we are trying to improve.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way—she is being generous. I agree that there is an opportunity in the Bill to go further with regard to local authorities, because they have the levers to address specific matters such as looked-after children. The problem is that the evidence we received from the local authorities was that they did not really have levers for the relative poverty target. In that case, if we are to tailor our targets for particular authorities and make them as relevant as possible, why do we not tailor clause 24 a little more and take out the relative low income target? We are trying to get an answer to that question.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Although it is enjoyable to debate with the hon. Gentleman, the proposal was only a probing amendment, and I am not entirely convinced that this debate is taking us anywhere. My argument is simple: we need to be consistent between what we do at local level and what we do at national level. I really do not think that I can helpfully add any more to what I have said.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

We have heard the most relevant question of the day: why have part 2 at all? From the answer that we have received, we know that there is no point to part 2 in its current form. There is clearly a lack of understanding of how things work out on the ground. The lack of levers and data on the ground will make things particularly difficult for local government. However, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 25

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I beg to move amendment 32, in clause 25, page 14, line 21, leave out ‘16’ and insert ‘18’.

Robert Key (Conservative, Salisbury)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 31, in clause 25, page 14, leave out lines 22 to 25.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

Albeit late in our proceedings, I wish to speak to an amendment that would have a fundamental impact on the scope of the Bill.

Clause 25 gives a definition of a child, which is necessary for a child poverty Bill. The definition used is familiar, as it refers to a person under the age of 16 or those aged 16 to 18 years and eligible for the receipt of child benefit. That definition is usually used in the official figures.

Amendment 32 would take the age in the Bill to 18 years, meaning that it would cover all those under 18. If it were not accepted, surely we would be doing a disservice to the purpose of the Bill, which is to tackle child poverty. We are not using the definition of a child that is used in the UN convention on the rights of the child. That is not a clincher, in the sense that we can use whatever definition we want, but we are a signatory to that UN convention and, under it, anyone under the age of 18 years—regardless of whether they are studying or receiving child benefit—has the right

“to a standard of living adequate for the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development.”

I cannot understand why we want the Bill to distinguish between some 17-year-olds and others. We will be including under the Bill 17-year-olds who, on average, are more prosperous. Staying on at school is correlated with the affluence of parents, as the Government acknowledge, hence the existence of means-tested education maintenance allowance. On average, those 17-year-olds who stay on at school come from better-off households, yet those who drop out of the school system at the age of 16, for example, will be excluded under the Bill. The Bill thus excludes a series of vulnerable young people.

The first group who are not included is those famous NEETs—16 and 17-year-olds not in education, employment or training—of whom there are an estimated 124,000. Surely, if we are concerned about child poverty, a 16-year-old who is not being educated or trained, nor doing a job, has to be pretty high up on our list of teenagers whom we are bothered about. However, unless the Minister accepts amendment 32, the Bill will exclude them. It will also exclude 16 and 17-year-olds living independently, who do not count as children under the definition. It will also exclude care levers, because they leave the care system at 16 and live independently. We know that that group has a very high risk of poor outcomes, yet they are being excluded.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

I wanted to mention exactly that group. Many young people come out of care and are dumped into bedsits by local authorities that are, it seems, relieved to lose responsibility for them. We are excluding that most vulnerable of groups—they are vulnerable to prostitution and all sorts of exploitation—from the scope of a child poverty Bill. I hope that Ministers will listen to the powerful point that the hon. Gentleman is making.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; he puts the point very well.

There is an issue surrounding defining a child by whatever the benefit regulations of the day happen to be. We know what the child benefit rules are now, but they could shift. A future Government could abolish child benefit for the post-16 group, which, in turn, would exclude those people from the scope of the Bill altogether. Alternatively, a Government could means-test the benefit, so better-off 17-year-olds would be out and poorer 17-year-olds in. The definition of a child could vary from year to year, but not according to anything “real”, as it were. From one year to the next, someone could cease to be a child, not because they got a year older, but because the benefit rules had changed, and that seems odd.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

The deputy leader of the hon. Gentleman’s party advocates means-testing child benefit. Is there a prospect that the policy will come in?

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

Not if we have anything to do with it.

The key point is that we need to define a child in common-sense terms that accord with the spirit of the Bill. Why have just a child poverty Bill? One could argue that we should have an adult poverty Bill or a pensioner poverty Bill. We have a child poverty Bill because we are talking about people who are growing up, dependent on others and at a formative stage of life. That implies that the definition of a child should not be linked to a particular set of benefits or to something that might change over time. It certainly implies that vulnerable young people should not be excluded. There could be a pair of twins—it must be a pair, I suppose—one of whom was a child while the other was not. That would be ludicrous, would it not? Under the Bill, if one 17-year-old twin was at school and the other had dropped out, one would be a child and one would not. Surely the Minister accepts that that is absurd.

The Financial Secretary might say, “Ah yes, that is all very well. We really care about unemployed 17-year-olds and we have all these programmes to deal with them, but we need standard international definitions,” as he has argued in the past. There is nothing stopping us having standard international definitions if all we want to do is compare our statistics with other countries but, to return to an earlier point, the Bill should be about the welfare of children and young people in this country and we should have a definition that works for that purpose. There is nothing stopping us collecting the figures on other bases for international comparisons—we are doing it anyway and it is not a problem—but let us have a definition that goes up to 18. We have signed up to that definition under the international convention. It would cover a lot of vulnerable young people whose welfare is surely just as important—if not in some senses more important, in that it gives greater grounds for worry—as the welfare of the 17-year-olds who are within the scope of the Bill who, on average, come from backgrounds that are more affluent. We are including some young people whom we are less worried about because they are doing well, while arbitrarily and artificially excluding some whom we have been more worried about. I commend the amendment to the Committee.

Stephen Timms (Labour, East Ham)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr. Key, in our final Committee sitting.

The hon. Member for Northavon has explained the effect that amendments 31 and 32 would have, but I must say to him that our aim is to end child poverty. We want, through the Bill, to meet the targets that are applied to dependent children. My principal response to his case is that we want the targets to relate to dependent children. He acknowledged that in his remarks. When we talk about children in ordinary parlance, we are talking about young people who are dependent on others, and that is the group that the definition in the Bill describes.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

When I heard myself talking about that, I thought, “Ooh, ’eck, have I just undermined my arguments?” However, a 17-year-old NEET is financially dependent on his or her parents, so why preclude them from the Bill?

Stephen Timms (Labour, East Ham)

The Bill addresses the issue of improving children’s living standards. It is right that the definition of a child in the Bill should relate directly to the financial support that the Government provide for families in respect of children—that is the effect of the clause. Under the definition, a child is financially dependent on their parents. Many young people over the age of 16 who are not in full-time education might well be earning in their own right. They are not necessarily dependent, so they are not covered by the measurement of child poverty. That sets the boundary in the right place. The definition follows the approach that is taken in the survey of family resources, which has been the main survey used to measure child poverty since it began in 1993-94. The definition was also used in earlier child poverty statistics. One benefit of using that definition is that it gives us a continuous data series that runs back to, I think, 1961.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the school leaving age is going up to 18? By providing support through the education maintenance allowance, which is highly valued in my constituency, so that children may stay on at school beyond 16 to 18, are not the Government providing more support to 16 to 18-year-olds than has been given previously?

Stephen Timms (Labour, East Ham)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the increase in support for that group. I was going to mention the increase in support for another group who have rightly been mentioned—care leavers. Support for that important group was addressed by the Children and Young Persons Act 2008. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the additional funding and support that we are providing.

The hon. Member for Northavon anticipated that I would make this next point. If we are to meet the targets in the Bill in a sustainable way, national and local strategies will need to go wider than the definition of children that is used in the target, and will certainly cover youth unemployment and training. As my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North has pointed out, we have raised the participation age. We are also ensuring that all young people benefit from education or training, whether combined with work or not, through the future jobs fund, which supports young people into employment.

The European Union has started to publish data on poverty among under-18s. On the most recent data that it has published, for 2007, it is exactly the same as the proportion in child poverty under the households with below average income statistics. As the European Union series emerges—it was first published in 2005—it will enable the level of poverty in that group to be tracked.

I shall sum up my argument with two points. First, it is right to refer to dependent children in the way in which the Bill does, because that is what most people understand by the term “child”. Secondly, that approach has the great strength of giving us a continuous data series for comparison, going back to 1961, I think.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I am grateful to the Minister. I am sure that my former colleagues at the Institute for Fiscal Studies would enjoy reworking the data back to 1961 on a slightly different definition. I have to say that I am convinced by the argument. The Minister says, “We have done worthwhile things for 17-year-olds who are not defined as children.” I am sure that the Government have done that, and can therefore get the credit for those things if they are included in the scope of the Bill. We can have consistent data over time on a range of definitions, because we know from the data what the 17-year-olds who were not in education were doing. We would therefore know who is excluded and who we would want to start including, if we agreed to the amendment. I return to my central point, which is that we are making arbitrary and artificial—

Stephen Timms (Labour, East Ham)

This is a small point, but I do not think that we have the data going back to 1961 for under-18s in poverty—that would be difficult. However, we know the figure for children, as defined in the Bill.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

A 17-year-old who responded to the family expenditure survey in 1961 as an adult, because they had left school, would presumably have had to say what they were doing. I assume, therefore, that the survey would show whether they were in employment or getting benefits, and if they were getting benefits in their own right they would have been counted as a separate benefit unit. I seem to recall that the Minister had that data, but I am open to correction.

The amendment is worthwhile and important. We need meaningful definitions and I therefore seek to test the opinion of the Committee.

New Clause 1

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Our debates on the Bill have generally, I hope, been constructively conducted, but there is no doubt that there is a view of the Bill that could be described as cynical and sceptical, and which has been advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness on one or two occasions. That view is that the Bill is essentially distraction legislation. At the very point when the Government are about to fail to meet their 2010 target, which has been in place since the late 1990s, they have come up with a new idea—a Bill to enshrine a target for 2020. One can imagine someone sitting around somewhere in the Treasury looking at forthcoming issues, spotting a bit of a problem with the 2010 child poverty target and saying, “What are we going to do about it? We’ll come up with a Bill enshrining a target for 2020 and nobody will particularly mind, because we have our eyes on the slightly more distant horizon and all will be well”. In other words, it is a case of, “Do not judge us on what we deliver, judge us on our intentions,” which, if one wanted to make a partisan point, has often been the approach of this Government.

New clause 1 intends to return us to the here and now—the nitty-gritty of delivery on previously announced targets to ensure that they do not go by the wayside and that the distraction legislation approach does not work. The Bill enshrines something more demanding than the 2010 target. As the Financial Secretary said:

“The arrangement that the Bill sets out is significantly more demanding for the coming decade than the arrangements that have been in place over the past 10 years.”——[Official Report, Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2009; c. 8, Q17.]

That is all very well; we are supportive of the objective of the Bill. However, we should not forget the 2010 target and I hope the Government do not give up on it. The Minister, in his evidence, said that they have certainly not given up on it. In a moment, I will set out in further detail why this new clause would be very constructive.

Steve Webbrose—

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I am very grateful to give way.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I will speak at length while the hon. Gentleman has a drink. The base line figure is 3.1 million, I think, for the before-housing-costs measure in 1998-99, so getting halfway there would be 1.55 million, if going halfway to zero. He has a figure of 1.7 million. Is that because he is going only halfway to 10 per cent.? I am not quite sure why a figure of 1.7 million has been chosen.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

That is the basis of the number, as I understand it. The hon. Gentleman is now looking at me sceptically. On the basis of the shortfall that the Government refer to, one sees a figure of 600,000 and at the moment we are on 2.3 million, so I think that that was where we got the 1.7 million number.

Stephen Timms (Labour, East Ham)

I might be able to shed some light on this. The base figure is 3.4 million children below the poverty line, so 50 per cent. would be 1.7 million. The IFS estimate was that we would get to 1.1 million, hence the 600,000 figure.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I am grateful to the Minister for providing that clarification. Having made the political knockabout point on why new clause 1 would be helpful to prevent the Government—

Mr. Stuartrose—

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

But before I move on, I give way to my hon. Friend.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

My hon. Friend takes the words out of my mouth. Political knockabout is holding this Government to account, ensuring that cynicism is not the driving purpose behind a piece of legislation dealing with such an important issue. The new clause is a perfect opportunity for the Government to show that their intentions are not cynical or there to distract, but serious and proper. If they accept the new clause, they will show that they are prepared to be held to account for 2010, as well as for their far away promises.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

My hon. Friend anticipates and exactly explains my argument. New clause 1 is constructive. The purpose of the Bill, described by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is to hold the Government’s feet to the fire. That is a good expression, but why should we not hold the Government’s feet to the fire with regard to the 2010 target? We also hear the argument that the Bill forces Governments to have strategies and reports, and to focus their mind. I think that argument is persuasive, but why not start that process sooner rather than later? Why not have some analysis in a proper report to Parliament on what has worked? Why has there been progress in reducing the number of children in relative poverty living in workless households, but not in working families, as pointed out by the Institute for Public Policy Research? How much of the progress has been because of income transfers, or other factors such as education, child care, family breakdown and all the various points that we have debated in Committee? Why did progress stall a couple of years ago? For two years child poverty numbers went up and then stayed static.

All of that could be addressed in a report that could provide useful analysis and guidance for future actions. We could have a better appreciation of the significance of the recession—a point that has come up once or twice during our proceedings. The evidence from the likes of the Institute for Fiscal Studies is that the recession does not have a straightforward negative impact on child poverty, although one might be forgiven for thinking that it does, listening to some of the things that Ministers have said—in Department for Work and Pensions questions on 29 June in fact.

I asked the Minister a question about child poverty targets and she replied:

“Everyone, even the hon. Gentleman, must understand that in the current economic circumstances meeting the 2010 target is a real challenge.”—[Official Report, 29 June 2009; Vol. 495, c. 10.]

We could infer from that that the current economic circumstances—the recession—have driven child poverty up, but we know that not to be the case. Child poverty is a relative measure and, because median incomes tend to be hit harder by recession than those who are on benefits, by and large there is a small negative effect. There is an impact on the public finances and, to be fair, in the course of the evidence session the Financial Secretary made it clear that that was the concern. It is worth bearing in mind that there is a choice that is often followed. I refer the Committee to the evidence given by Mike Brewer:

“The Government had a choice, particularly at the time of the fiscal stimulus. They had a choice between where to spend the money and they chose, for example, to keep the higher rate of personal allowance, which they introduced under a personal, temporary measure, rather than spend it on tax credits.”

I mention that because the Government might have acted differently if they had had to submit a report to Parliament in the near future explaining the progress towards the 2010 target. Perhaps a bit of hauling of the feet to the fire in the immediate future might change policy decisions on the upcoming public borrowing requirement.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

Let me give a further quotation from Mike Brewer:

“The Government could have spent some”

of that money

“on tax credits...That would have made a severe dent in child poverty, and I might well be sitting here now telling you that the Government were on track to hit their child poverty target.”——[Official Report, Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 22 October 2009; c. 118, Q234.]

That could have been done, and the Government might have had a different approach to the 2010 target if there had been a report.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

Does my hon. Friend wonder, as I do, whether the 10p tax measure, which penalised so many low earners, would have been brought in by the Government before the election that never was if Ministers had known that they would have to produce a report showing the impacts? My hon. Friend will be aware that there are still losers from that 10p tax fiasco.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It would be necessary to look closely at the data to see if the remaining losers were families with children.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I was expecting the hon. Member for Northavon to intervene but, failing him, I certainly give way to the hon. Lady.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

The hon. Gentleman should look at what happened with the 10p tax issue. I felt strongly about it, but only in relation to women between the ages of 60 and 64, for whom there has never been any compensation. If the hon. Gentleman looks closely at what happened, families with children, for the most part, were big gainers. I have looked up the figures for my constituency. There were very large amounts of money a week, not just 10p on the tax. The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong about the impact that that measure had on families with children, albeit that it impacted unfairly on other groups, particularly women.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I am grateful for that intervention. I am not sure that I am wrong because I was not particularly making that point. Perhaps she is saying that my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness is wrong.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

Outrageous.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

My hon. Friend can defend himself. In my experience he rarely is wrong. I am grateful for that intervention.

Kate Green, from the Child Poverty Action Group, made the point about the 2010 target when she said:

“However, there is clearly an important issue for us and for Parliament in terms of the credibility of the Bill and of making sure that as much is done as early as possible to continue progress towards the 2010 target—not least because children cannot wait until 2020 to see the quality of their lives improve.”— [Official Report, Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2009; c. 31, Q75.]

Let us not forget the 2010 target. It would help to maintain credibility in that target, ensure that lessons have been learned from the successes and failures of the Government’s strategy over the past 10 years, and gain a better understanding of what needs to be done, if the new clause were accepted. It would strengthen the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness rightly says, it would undermine those who consider that there is a cynical element to the introduction of the Bill.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I will be brief. A report on progress on the 2010 target would be welcome. I should explain my earlier intervention. When the 1998-99 baseline figures were originally produced they were 3.1 million. The Government then changed to a different equivalence scale which took them to 3.3 million. Then Northern Ireland was brought in which takes us to 3.4 million. That explains my confusion. I apologise for that. I am grateful to the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire for not pointing it out at the time. However, it raises an intriguing point about what constitutes progress towards a target that we used to think was zero but now turns out to be 10 per cent.

I am about to try to get the Government off the hook slightly: if we make the 2010 goal attainable, they might try to attain it. If we start with 3.4 million and we are trying to get, not to zero in 2020, but to 1.2 million children, then half way is not 1.7 million, it is 2.3 million. That would be half way to the target, not half way to abolition because they have given up on abolition. The current figure is not 2.3 million; it is 2.9 million and has been 2.9 million for the last five years. We have made no progress on child poverty in the last five years. So even getting from 2.9 million to 2.3 million would be a real achievement in those three years.

Perhaps it is naive of me to suggest this, but if the Chancellor knew that the 2010 goal was 2.3 million, not 1.7 million, he might think that it was feasible and he might take measures in the pre-Budget statement, even at this time. Could the Financial Secretary mention to the Chancellor that, were he to take measures that would take a projected 600,000 children out of poverty by 2010, we would be prepared to regard that as reaching the 2010 target? I am happy to place that on the record. It raises a serious question about what constitutes progress on the Bill. We thought that we were heading for zero. Now we know that we are only heading for 10 per cent., so it is not quite as unattainable as we originally thought.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

This is an honest inquiry. I am aware that Liberal Democrat Members rarely converse about these matters. Has he cleared that statement on the record with the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), as I would hate him to be taken by surprise?

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I shall do so during the imminent Division in the House. I cannot see any reason why we would not want a report on progress towards the 2010 target. We might have an argument about what the 2010 target is, but a clause to that effect in the Bill would be entirely welcome, regardless of whether it is in these precise words or at this point in our deliberations. A report would be entirely welcome.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the new clause because it gets to the heart of some of what the Bill is about. I understand that there is some cynicism among Opposition Members, but I am surprised at what the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire has been saying. It seems to go something like this: “The Government, in order to distract attention from what they’re doing and because they’re worried that they might lose the election next spring, are trying to pass legislation that will tie us lot into something that we don’t particularly want to do. Therefore, we’re trying to push the ball back and talk about what happens in 2010.”

Were the Government doing that, it would be unworthy. It would also be unworthy to use the Bill as a political ploy or dividing line. I do not think that it is. I think that the vast mass of organisations that have given us evidence are concerned about having a straightforward approach to dealing with child poverty. To deal with the point made by the hon. Member for Northavon, the reason why it is child poverty and not everybody else’s, is that all the statistics show, as he knows, that children are the most likely people in this country to be in poverty. They can do nothing about it because they are dependants. That is also the point of defining the age range, although I agree that over the next three, four or five years, attitudes towards 16 to 18-year-olds will change dramatically. We may well have to go back and ask what a child is, because our understanding of what young people between 16 and 18 should be doing is changing.

On the point about the numbers, the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire knows, because he and I have sat on the Treasury Committee together and have been through the figures, that the Government have always been accountable for the figures. There has always been the opportunity to press. There have always been criticisms of the fact that the 2010 target is challenging, that there were hiccups at certain points and that it depends on the definition of poverty. One of the important factors in the Bill is that we are not just looking at relative and absolute poverty; it is about material deprivation as well, which is stunningly important.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

As the hon. Lady says, the Government have always published the figures and been accountable, the Treasury Committee asks questions about them and so on. However, the view that the Government have taken and that we have supported is that a statutory framework would add some value. The point of new clause 1 is to include within that statutory framework something to do with the 2010 target.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

The hon. Gentleman has conceded that he was wrong to be cynical, which I certainly welcome. In the years to come, I think that issues of material deprivation will be more important than ever. It was interesting that when Save the Children gave a presentation on the subject, the issue that the young people brought up time and time again was going on holiday. There was a time some years ago, when I was a newspaper reporter, when if one talked about a family being in poverty, someone would say, “But do you know they’ve got a colour television set? They can’t be poor.” Now it seems that people say, “Well, they can’t be poor, they go on holiday.” Actually, it is right that Parliament should assert that children and families are entitled to go on holiday and have friends round for tea. It is expected that children should have their own bedroom and other such things. I hope that it will also be possible to introduce measures about living space, which I discussed with my hon. Friends the other night.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

The whole purpose of the Bill is to put child poverty targets on to a statutory footing to ensure that Governments take them seriously and deliver them. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the 2010 target—the immediate one—is not forgotten. I therefore hope that the hon. Lady will support the amendment or tell us now why putting the 2010 target in the Bill is harmful.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I will come to that. I agree that there has to be transparency. It is also important that we are able to measure properly what is happening and follow through the statistics. One of the most important measures in tackling child poverty—the only such measure in the Budget or the previous year’s PBR—is the change in housing benefit rules, which has come into force while the Bill has been making its way through the House. The rules were to be changed around October-November time so that more child benefits could be retained rather than double-counted and clawed back. That was worth—the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire should remember this, because he was on the Treasury Committee with me and we heard this together—either £250 million or £350 million, which was calculated to get a certain number of children out of poverty. I am sure that, as with the similar change in housing benefits for pensioners, local authorities will have problems, but I suspect that the change in housing benefit rules will ultimately lead to a change in the numbers. That will probably happen next spring.

The hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire asked why it is necessary to enshrine the measure in legislation, and we have discussed part 2 of the Bill. It is important to recognise that there have been efforts to address the issue and to get all the other agencies involved without a statutory framework. That was done through the new deal for communities programme, which was introduced in 2000 or 2001. The local strategic partnerships were also set up so that all the agencies could come together, starting with the poorest 25 per cent. of local authorities, to bend their purchasing power to tackle poverty. While that had some effect, it did not work particularly well, so it is important to have legislation stating that all the agencies should work together to tackle child poverty. There should be a statutory framework, not only for the Government target, but also for local agencies and authorities to bend their purchasing power.

The next issue is why we do not tack on to the Bill a provision that requires the local agencies and authorities to say what they are doing in three months’ time. The Government have been open about the difficulties that they face in meeting next year’s target. No one is in any doubt about that: the Work and Pensions Committee has probably looked at it, the Treasury Committee has certainly looked at it and there have been questions in the House. We all know that there are difficulties.

The issue could have been dramatically avoided if, instead of taking 2.5 per cent. off VAT, we had spent the money and tacked it on to tax credits. The hon. Gentleman might recall that that was one of the things that I proposed on the Treasury Committee, but the other members were not startlingly enthusiastic about it. The cost of the VAT cut was £2.6 billion, which was the exact amount needed to deal with child poverty.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

It was £12 billion.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I recall that it was £2.6 billion, but I will look again at the figures. I have the disadvantage of not having inspiration coming to me via pieces of paper while I speak. As I recall—I will look at the papers that we had at the time—

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I think that I can help the hon. Lady, although I was off the Treasury Committee by the time that this happened. The VAT cut was worth £12 billion. The increase in the personal allowance, which was made permanent, was worth £2.6 billion, which could have been used for increasing tax credits.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I recall that, at the time, we could have said, “Instead of tacking it on, we can increase the tax credits and that will, at a stroke, deal with the whole problem of child poverty.” However, there was not a great mass of people jumping up and down saying, “That’s a really clever idea.” We need to recognise that, although we all agree with the end of child poverty, we are not always so happy about voting for the means to do it, particularly when times and priorities are tight.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

The hon. Lady is making a persuasive case for new clause 1. Does she think that, had the new clause included a statutory obligation to put the report in place, that may have increased her leverage and influence in the Committee and that she might have won that argument?

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

No, I do not think that at all. That was some time ago, when circumstances were different and we were looking at different options. To make the first aim of the Bill, which is effectively being passed in the new year, the production of a report in three months’ time is not quite the point. The Bill is supposed to end child poverty. However, I understand and share Committee members’ concerns. It is a bit like the example of full employment with unemployment still at 5 per cent., but in this case, ending child poverty means that the figure is still 10 per cent.

In passing legislation that has some challenging targets and a lot of important measures that relate to changing the way that people work and that considers the work of a range of local agencies to find ways to co-operate and tackle a problem that has defied Governments for a good period, it is not constructive to say that a report must be produced in three months.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

May I point out that quite the opposite is true? There could be nothing better than a report on what progress the Government have made, including what has worked and what has not, to create the platform from which, based on a realistic assessment of past efforts, we can move towards the diminution, if not the eradication, of poverty among those who technically qualify as children under the Minister’s aim. Surely, it is the right thing to do: it is focused on the now and on understanding what has gone on before, and it informs the future. The hon. Lady should support the amendment, because it is absolutely in line with what she has said.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

It is actually a new clause, not an amendment. We have had reports on what has happened with the 2010 targets. We have had reports on what works and on what is projected to happen. I hope that we will have some more measures in the autumn statement, which we will get soon, that will help to deal with some of the problems that we face tackling child poverty as we come out of the recession. It is not very impressive to suggest passing legislation that will at first produce a report, knowing about all the work that has gone into it and knowing what issues and challenges are involved. That is more a demonstration of Opposition petulance than of having a concerted commitment to taking the powers in the legislation, which will be difficult to implement. It will be challenging and will call on a whole range of agencies to look again at some of their work and priorities, and it will take some time for the effects to work through.

The focus should be on getting the legislation and workings in place, and after a reasonable time, we can come back, see how the legislation has worked and ask, “Has this way of getting local authorities to work together and look at these measures worked?” We also need to ask how we are getting on with tackling not only absolute and relative poverty, but material deprivation. There are some real challenges, including in relation to housing.

I very much hope that the result of the Bill will be to reduce child poverty and that how we regard the issue will change. I also hope that the legislation will make us much more intolerant of some of the material deprivation that affects the lives of poor children, as well as making us intolerant of the absolute and relative poverty in which, unfortunately, too many children in this country still live.

Stephen Timms (Labour, East Ham)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making some important points. The hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire made the point that, on the whole, there has been a constructive tone to these debates. He is right, and I am glad that that has been the general tone of the Committee. The arguments presented have not been overstated—there has been the odd exception, but on the whole that has been true. I welcome such an approach.

As we have heard, the new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish a report on progress towards reducing child poverty by half by 2010. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that the aim of such a report is, in fact, already covered in the Bill, because clause 8 will require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy that sets out the measures that will be taken to meet the child poverty targets in clauses 2 to 5. To ensure that the Secretary of State reports on the progress on tackling child poverty, clause 13 will require the Secretary of State to produce and lay before Parliament an annual progress report.

Through that combination, what the hon. Gentleman is endeavouring to secure with the new clause will be delivered, although it is true that it will happen a little later—I suppose that three months after the Bill’s Royal Assent is likely roughly to take us up to summer next year. The process that I am describing will take a little bit longer. He said that his aim is to keep feet to the fire regarding the 2010 target, but he does not need to worry too much on that score. Feet will be kept to the fire on that, as we have seen and, no doubt, will continue to see.

The hon. Member for Northavon suggested that, according to one interpretation, we would actually hit the 2010 target. His former colleagues in the Institute for Fiscal Studies have suggested that, on the basis of the measures that have been announced, child poverty is likely to reduce by 1.1 million by the end of the financial year 2010-11. On the calculations that the hon. Gentleman set out, that would be halfway towards eradication as defined in the Bill—it is kind of the Liberal Democrat party to laud the Government’s success.

The other way that we could look at the matter is in relation to the absolute poverty target, which has already been halved. We could say that we hit the target on that basis, but many people would accuse us of shifting the goalposts rather radically if we did so. I think that it has always been understood that the 2010 target meant a reduction to 1.7 million from 3.4 million, or that it related to the number living below the relative poverty line.

Nevertheless, I suggest to the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire that, in effect, what he wants to happen will happen in due course under the arrangements already in the Bill. Having an extra report next summer is not really going to help. I therefore hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the motion.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I am grateful to the Financial Secretary for his comments. However, the strategy and reports contained in the Bill relate specifically to the 2010 target. On that basis, new clause 1 would add something to the Bill. I shall therefore press for a Division.

New Clause 2

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Robert Key (Conservative, Salisbury)

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 4—Minimum income standards—

‘(1) In the exercise of his duties, the Secretary of State shall have regard to minimum income standards.

(2) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to commission research into the minimum levels of household incomes necessary to sustain a healthy diet, other necessities, safety and wellbeing for children (in this Act referred to as “Minimum Income Standards”).’.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I think that everyone was baffled by those decisions, Mr. Key, but I am sure that you know what you were doing.

We have now reached the final group of new clauses, which touch on a fundamental point about the Bill—whether it is possible to achieve the 2020 child poverty target with benefit rates that are not themselves above the poverty line. Under new clause 2, someone who is wholly dependent upon benefits or tax credits would have an income of at least 60 per cent. of the median poverty line. New clause 4 was tabled by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness, and I have added my name to it. I know that the Committee appreciated hearing the evidence of Rev. Paul Nicholson and the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, who suggested amendments along these lines. I shall return to new clause 4 in a moment.

New clause 2 is fundamental. We talked earlier about levers and what local and central Government can do. New clause 2 is about what central Government can do and the rate of social security benefits and tax credits. If we do not accept new clause 2, there is a logical inconsistency in the Government’s position. To quote the Bill, they want to “eradicate” child poverty, but they are not prepared to set the rates of benefits and tax credits at levels that lift people clear of the poverty line.

Government rhetoric at moments such as this is, “Yes, but we do not want people on benefits. We want them in work.” Unless we are going to have full employment, nobody out of work and nobody at home looking after their children, there will always be somebody on benefits and tax credits. The question is whether it is acceptable to have a Bill about eradicating child poverty and an explicit lever of Government policy that puts people into child poverty. It is that fundamental inconsistency that we are seeking to raise through new clause 2.

In the spirit of inquiry, I asked the House of Commons Library staff to do some sums for me, which they are always pleased to do. I asked them to compare the poverty line in the Bill—60 per cent. of median—with what somebody wholly dependent on benefits and tax credits would have to live on. They came up with some very interesting figures. They calculated that a lone parent on benefits and tax credits—getting average amounts of housing benefit I assume—is already clear of the poverty line. That does not mean that there are no lone parents living in poverty. The House of Commons Library figures show that taking the Government’s tax benefit model tables and assuming full take-up with people getting everything to which they are entitled, including, I think, an average amount of housing benefit, a lone parent would already be clear of the 60 per cent. median poverty line. However, the figures also show us that many lone parents are not clear of the 60 per cent. median poverty line. That raises an issue of why not, to which we shall come back.

Couples, interestingly, are not clear of the poverty line. On average, a couple with one child, getting all the benefits and tax credits to which they are entitled, based on the tax benefit model tables, is 7 per cent. below the poverty line and a couple with two children is 11 per cent. below the poverty line. On the basis of those figures, the Government are paying couples with children a benefit and tax credit rate below the poverty line while trying to pass legislation to eradicate child poverty.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

Has the hon. Gentleman just identified or described what is sometimes called the couples penalty?

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

No, for reasons that I will explain. There is a fair point about rates of benefits and tax credits to couples relative to their poverty line, which is different from that of lone parents. There are relativities in the system. Why do lone parents get more money? It is not necessarily pro rata to their needs but because they are, on average, more deprived in other ways. The amount they are paid in benefits and tax credits is trying to do something else, as well as meet needs.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I asked the Library to produce similar figures—though not for the same purpose—at the time of the 10p tax issue or disaster, whatever one wants to call it. It was particularly marked that in two-parent households with children, income and poverty levels were entirely dependent on quite small changes to the number of hours worked. If both parents worked a few hours or one of them worked full time, the relative changes in the income level were marked. Could the hon. Gentleman say how the figures he has would look if one person did part-time work or if one worked full time, so that their entitlements changed?

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

To be clear about the figures I am using, the question I asked was, “What would be the income of a couple with children wholly dependent on benefits?” In other words, the bit of their income that the state controls. That is not to do with wages. If they are earning, as the hon. Lady rightly says, there can be quite big jumps as soon as they do 16 hours or whatever it happens to be. My point is that there will always be families with children, couples and lone parents wholly dependent on benefits and tax credits. It would be odd of the Government to set benefit and tax credit payments below their own poverty line, when they are passing legislation to eradicate child poverty. I do not see how those measures can sit together. That is linked to the minimum income standard argument that we will discuss later.

I have discussed a theoretical situation with a hypothetical lone parent and couple. The actual situation is much worse. Half of the children in poverty are in non-working households; 30 per cent. have non-working lone parents and 19 per cent. are in non-working two-parent households. That means that almost 1.5 million of the 2.9 million children in poverty are wholly dependent on benefits or tax credits. Even if we could deal with the 1.5 million children from working households who are in poverty by providing better child care, education, training and jobs, we would be left with more than 1.2 million children below the Government’s poverty line and would fail to meet our 2020 target.

No Governments have set benefit and tax credit rates high enough to lift people clear of poverty. I have moved from the hypothetical to the real: 30 per cent. of children in poverty have lone parents. There is no reason why they are in poverty other than the level of benefits and tax credits.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

The hon. Gentleman’s logic is impeccable. What assessment has he made of the effect on incentives to work if benefits were raised to remove those families from poverty? Even if poverty is technically eradicated under our relative definition, will not the culture of worklessness and other problems persist if families do not gain the benefit of being in the workplace?

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

The hon. Gentleman is right. There are many trade-offs in these matters, and he highlights one.

My point is that we can do one of two things. We could say that we are legislating to stop people living in poverty, which we define as being below a certain level. If we are aiming to eradicate poverty, another arm of Government cannot leave people in poverty. The other option is to say that it is a specific aim of Government policy to pay people below the poverty line so that they are driven into work. Under that world view, driving people into work is more important than people having a standard of living above the poverty line. We cannot do both things at the same time, but the Bill tries to do that.

Jamie Reed (Labour, Copeland)

The hon. Gentleman is making a persuasive case. Like the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness, I have anxieties about this discussion. I have a great deal of sympathy with what the hon. Member for Northavon is saying, but I am concerned about the potential for creating regional ghettos. Parents who have been out of work for a long period are likely to be in areas of profound market failure, where employment is hard to come by. I am not saying that the benefits system is what it should be, but if we provide an even better benefits system to prevent people from being in poverty, we may end up consigning generation after generation to increased dependence on the state. Does he share that concern?

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. One measure of poverty in the Bill is persistent poverty. How can we avoid children living in persistent poverty in such unemployment blackspots? We can and do try to get mum or dad—or both—into work. However, many are dependent on benefits for three years out of four. If we do not give them enough to live on, relative to the thresholds, we will not achieve the target in the Bill. We could set benefits at such a level that we drive people to take jobs, come what may, because they cannot otherwise survive. My worry is that we are saying inconsistent things.

Jamie Reed (Labour, Copeland)

The hon. Gentleman makes a logical and analytical dissection of a real issue. I am not sure what the answer is, and I am not sure that he is either.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I suppose that I am asking the Government to be explicit about what they do. Do the Government set benefit levels to lift people out of poverty? Clearly not. We define poverty in the Bill, and benefits and tax credits are not enough to lift a couple out of poverty. What are the Government doing? Will they state explicitly that when benefit levels are set, they are not trying to lift people out of poverty, but seeking to provide people with short-term relief as a temporary measure for something else? What about long-term sick and disabled people and the argument, “We want them to get a job”? A set of people exists who are not going to get a job. What do we say about those people if we consign them to long-term dependence on a rate of benefit that we have spent the last three weeks defining as poverty? That is my point.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

The hon. Gentleman spoke about the number of two-adult households that live in poverty, which is very striking. Does he agree—he hinted at this point—that often in those families, at least one adult is not capable of working? Often, someone is not able to work because of a disability or a long-term illness. Sometimes, they have been involved in crime and are in and out of prison, or they might be transient and unable to work. Does he agree that there are often explanations of why two-adult households that do not work and live in poverty are in that position? They will sometimes be attracting other benefits.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

Absolutely. That reinforces my point. The glib response to my point is, “Yes, but work is the answer. Work, work, work. Let’s not pay people too much money because it discourages them from working. The real way to get people out of poverty is to get them to work.” I wonder whether there will always be more than 1.2 million children living in households that are wholly dependent on benefit, because their parents are long-term unemployed, sick, temporarily unemployed, or whatever. Unless benefit levels are set at or above the poverty line, is it physically possible to achieve the 2020 goal?

What has frustrated me about our discussions—I did not think about this until I looked at the numbers—is that until we ask ourselves about the right level of benefits relative to the poverty line, we cannot think about whether we will ever achieve these goals. That comes back to our 2017, panicky, pulling-the-levers-of-income-transfers point.

I will give one more example of my point. For a low-income household, it is something even more alarming. The risk of being in poverty changes according to whether someone is on a certain benefit. The national average for the risk of living in poverty is 29 per cent. [Interruption.] I am sorry, there is a 23 per cent. risk. Children whose parents claim jobseeker’s allowance have a 70 per cent. risk of living in poverty. If their parents are on income support, it is a 54 per cent. risk, and if their parents claim working tax credit, it is a 29 per cent. risk—that is the number I read out by mistake.

A child is three times as likely to live in poverty if their parents claim JSA—of course, because they are unemployed. However, the point is that JSA is set by the Government. Income support and working tax credit are set by the Government. The Government explicitly set benefit rates that inflict three times the risk of living in poverty on those children whose living standards they determine.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

I entirely accept the logic of what the hon. Gentleman says. Regardless of the legislation, does he believe that we should set benefit rates above the poverty line? Is that the right thing to do in the broadest sense, regardless of the Bill? Is that the right policy?

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

This is where new clause 4 comes in. I am saying that, if the poverty thresholds and the targets in the Bill mean anything, we should at least think about those thresholds when setting benefit rates. We patently are not doing that. It would cost a lot of money—I do not know how much because the numbers are quite complicated, but it would be billions of pounds, and I am certainly not committing to that—but if we set benefit rates each year without thinking about the thresholds on which we are legislating, we might as well give up as we are not going to achieve our goals. That is my point.

Sally Keeble (Labour, Northampton North)

I remember reading those figures as well, although I might have been looking those for a different year. However, I think that the group that is most likely to be in poverty is families on housing benefit. Being on that benefit is one of the prime indicators of poverty. A measure that allows families on housing benefit to retain more of their child benefit is an effective way of tackling of chid poverty, because it puts more money into exactly families that are at the highest risk of poverty.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

The hon. Lady is right. There is a 53 per cent. risk for people on housing benefit, which is higher than the average, but still lower than the risk for those on jobseeker’s allowance. I have no problem with helping families on housing benefits—they are, on average, a poor group who should be helped. However, surely the Treasury has worked out internally whether we will ever achieve the goal of the Bill as long as we pay benefits below the poverty line, which is what we are doing. Is it possible to achieve the 2020 target without paying benefits and tax credits at or above the 60 per cent. median? It might not be. Furthermore, a single parent who claims everything should be clear of the poverty line, but 30 per cent. of children in poverty are the children of single parents on benefits. Why are so many of them still below the poverty line?

Finally, let me turn to the issue of minimum income standards, which is addressed by new clause 4—I shall speak to it now to save me from coming back to it. I have suggested setting benefit levels by making them relative to the poverty line under the Bill, but another attractive approach would be to make them relative to what people need to live on—the Joseph Rowntree Foundation used to talk about “subsistence” and “modest but adequate” levels. The measure would enable an intelligent discussion about the adequacy of benefit levels, which I am afraid we do not have in British politics at the moment. We simply set benefit levels on the basis of what they were the previous year, plus a bit more.

Every Government have been terrified of opening a can of worms by asking how much is enough to live on. However, that is done in plenty of other countries, such as Norway, Sweden, Germany and Canada. Minimum income standards are not novel. Unless and until we talk about how much we are paying people who have no other income and how that relates to their need, I am not sure that we can address the issue of child poverty properly. The living standards of adults without children have fallen massively in the past 15 years, as they were the group whose benefits were least prioritised. Benefits for children and pensioners are linked to earnings, but there are groups of people who are highly dependent on benefits whose living standards have fallen and fallen, and who cannot attain the “modest but adequate” benchmark.

I shall conclude my remarks by saying that all I am pleading for is that we cease setting benefit levels arbitrarily. Benefit levels now are essentially what they were post war, when most of the current situation was invented. Benefits have been uprated on a whole variety of ad-hoc bases with no relation to anything outside—that is the key. When we are setting benefit and tax credit levels, let us relate them to something real, whether that is the definition of poverty in the Bill, or a minimum income standard that is needed for someone to have a modest and adequate standard of living, rather than just plucking them out of the air and saying, “How much cash do we have this year? Let’s add inflation, plus a little bit.” We should set benefits objectively, which would be a firmer foundation for tackling child poverty in the future.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.