Child Poverty Strategy

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in relation to the (1) implementation, and (2) outcomes, of the Child Poverty Strategy.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock)]

My Lords, the Government are progressing urgent legislation to remove the two-child limit from April, which is expected to lift 450,000 children out of poverty by the final year of this Parliament. Our monitoring and evaluations framework sets out our plans to track progress as part of our 10-year strategy for delivering long-term change. This summer we will publish a baseline report setting out the latest statistics and evidence, with annual reporting thereafter.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful, as always, to my noble friend the Minister, who I suspect is one of the finest advocates for the Government in either House. She will know that some critics of the Government crave a greater overarching vision or story; others complain that policies such as removing the two-child benefit cap somehow reward the feckless. Would she like to take this opportunity to explain where this strategy sits amongst government priorities and why it is so important?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend and commend her on her great taste in Ministers, if I may say so. It is also a really great question. The Prime Minister made it clear very early on what a high priority it was for him, and for this Government, to tackle the horrors of child poverty. Some 900,000 more children were in poverty as a result of the previous Government. This Government are determined to stop that, so policies such as removing the two-child limit and others that we have already announced will lift around 550,000 children out of poverty by the end of this Parliament. Do we know why it matters? It is not just to those individual children while they are kids; poverty scars their life chances. Children who grow up in poverty are more likely to have mental health difficulties by age 11. When they are adults, they are more likely to be unemployed and likely to earn less. Our country cannot afford to do that to our children, and our country cannot afford our children to underachieve. That is why it matters.

Two-child Benefit Cap: Foreign-born Children

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I have seen no evidence that anything as specific as this has any impact on asylum. I am sure the noble Lord is aware that our system is so strict that, for somebody to be able to come to this country, they need to meet the requirements. If someone is in the country illegally, they are not entitled to access public funds. If they are entitled to universal credit, they are expected to work. Our system is designed to support people into work but also to require that they work. This year the DWP will consult on making sure that we look at the relationship between residence requirements and our benefits system and prioritise resources for those who are making an economic contribution—but nothing in that says that we do not want to tackle child poverty. I am sure the whole House agrees with that.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, can my noble friend say a little more about how this progressive policy relates to the wider child poverty strategy, in particular the wider rollout this week of breakfast clubs in schools and, going forward, perhaps incremental universal free school meals, as some of us would aspire to, for all school-age children?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. We have another question in a moment about the child poverty strategy, so I get to spend 20 minutes talking about child poverty. Tackling child poverty has to be done on so many fronts and our strategy looks at people’s incomes, the costs they are facing and how we can give them opportunities. I am so proud that the Government have decided to do things such as extending free school meals to those on universal credit. Children need to arrive at school ready to learn, and you cannot be ready to learn if you are hungry. It is also a way of tackling the cost of living for so many families who are struggling. I am proud that we are making childcare more available and getting more support to those who are on universal credit who want to do the right thing and work but face barriers in their way. And I am proud that we are rolling out Best Start family hubs and all kinds of measures. Our children are not just our present; they are the future of our country. If we invest in them, we invest in Britain. It is the right thing to do.

Equality and Human Rights Commission: Code of Practice

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for her very clear answers so far. Does she agree with me that although the Supreme Court is definitive on the meaning of the Equality Act, it was silent as to other continuing obligations—for example, to trans people under the Human Rights Act—and that navigating coterminous legal obligations is one of the complex challenges of the guidance and that it has to be got right?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that it is important, and it is the basis of the Equality Act, to recognise the rights of all those with protected characteristics within it. What was helpful in the Supreme Court’s judgment was the absolute clarification that trans people’s rights remain protected within the Equality Act 2010. We have been clear that the laws to protect trans people from discrimination and harassment will remain in place and that trans people will still be protected on the basis of gender reassignment, which is a protected characteristic written into the Equality Act.

Work is already under way to fulfil our commitment to advance the rights and protections afforded to LGBT+ people, and that includes delivering a full trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices, working with the Home Office to deliver our commitment to equalise all existing strands of hate crime, and working with the Department of Health and Social Care to improve services for trans people.

Sexual Harassment in Educational Settings

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I think I have responded to that point. I have pointed out that one of the most appropriate things that schools can do—recognising that misogyny and abuse are not innate to children but are learned, including through the internet—is to help teach children different attitudes and to reinforce the decency that I think we all know most children and young boys have. To support schools to do that, we are investing through the provision that I talked about earlier, providing new guidance through the relationships, sex and health education guidance and supporting our teachers and parents to be able to do that.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for her cross-cutting brief and the personal commitment she has to this issue. I understand the rightful concerns of noble Lords around the House that social media and big tech have played a negative role in all this. None the less, what can the Government do in their own media rounds—that is, every single Minister when in front of a microphone—and what can the Opposition do, given that they are led by a woman, to integrate this anti-misogynistic message in everything we do?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that the type of misogyny we are seeing, particularly impacting young people, needs a wide policy response. But it also needs cultural and political leadership, and it needs everybody to work together to condemn it and ensure that the positive behaviour which most young men and boys show is reinforced and that, where there are misogynistic attitudes in schools, we support teachers and parents to tackle them.

Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd April 2024 Grand Committee

This measure is cruel, dangerous, disproportionate and unwanted. I hope the Minister will not try to suggest that any of these organisations or signatories to the amendments are unconcerned about fraud. Fraud is something that we all pay for in the price of goods, our taxes and the undermining of public services. However, what is being proposed is nothing less than a giant fishing expedition focused on the vulnerable, the poor and the old. The DWP is grasping at surveillance to tackle a crisis in management and staffing; the fact that these measures are restricted only to benefit fraud, not to the many more billions that could be clawed back from Covid loans and tax fraud, reveals that, as currently formulated, this measure is ideological, not practical. I beg to move.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure and a privilege to support that tour de force from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I do not need to repeat it but, to summarise, I completely agree with the opinion from Matrix Chambers that, in addition to its immorality, this provision is in contravention of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights on respect for private and family life—relating to correspondence in particular. It is not necessary or proportionate, as we have heard. It is discriminatory and, for the purposes of the convention, is not in accordance with law. Once more, as we have heard, promising the possibility of guidance in future is no substitute for properly confining a power of this kind. Instead, the power is breathtaking in its scope and in its intrusive nature over the most sensitive financial and other personal information that could be gleaned this way.

It is an intrusion and an indignity as the breaches of privacy are not just for vulnerable people who are on benefits—not only non-means-tested benefits but means-tested benefits too. They are also an intrusion on the financial privacy of those who have linked accounts, whether they are a family member who is helping out by way of paying carers, landlords and so on or a family member who gives a small gift to a vulnerable person on benefits. Perhaps that is the Government’s intention—I do not know—but it is breathtaking in its sweep and in the number of citizens and people in this country who will be caught up in it. That is what makes it disproportionate and not in accordance with law relying on hypothetical guidance.

The discriminatory aspect cannot be emphasised enough. There are, broadly speaking, two categories of people for these purposes in these islands: those who earn, have inherited or otherwise have enough wealth to come within the scope of HMRC and who should pay tax and not avoid it—that is, not defraud other taxpayers and the country as a whole; and those who are on benefits, whether means-tested or universal. Neither category of humanity should be exempt from fraud but nor should there be a discriminatory approach to policing any potential fraud. Why is it that, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, we have this breathtaking snooper’s charter for those on benefits but a much more targeted approach to those who should be paying taxes? That discrimination cannot be justified.

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

What is the difference between the trawl in looking at people who are seeking to avoid tax, which is not a crime, and in looking at those who are possibly mis-stating the extent of their assets? In the noble Baroness’s view, how is the surveillance different in terms of this Bill?

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. It is not just my view. It was put very well by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and, as I recall, is outlined in the legal opinion. HMRC’s powers are more targeted and have more safeguards.

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

When the noble Baroness says, “more targeted”, is what way are they more targeted? That is what I would like to know.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

They relate to individual people by name, not whole sweeps of people who have done nothing wrong but get a particular benefit.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

What I am advocating to the Committee is that, in terms of our approach in this country to everyone in either category—or to people who are sometimes in both categories because they are, for example, entitled to some universal benefits but none the less must pay tax on their earnings, inheritance or whatever—the appropriate approach is a targeted approach beginning with at least some reasonable suspicion that a person’s financial matters are a cause for concern. Once there is reasonable suspicion—not even hard proof—because of their activities, that should be the trigger for an intrusion into their affairs. We have had that approach to privacy in this country for a very long time; it is the approach that, broadly speaking, is entrenched in Article 8 of the convention. Even if one does not like human rights conventions, it is none the less a tradition that people in this country—not just lawyers—have long understood.

Further, and in reference to the remarks attributed to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich—who is not in his place, which is the reason why I am also risking being sensible—it is absolutely flabbergasting that there are greater checks and balances for investigating matters of national security than for investigating what could be minor benefit fraud. An example is the allegation that the person giving a Christmas present to their pensioner relative or their relative who is not able to work should trigger a response in the algorithm that this is somebody who should no longer be worthy of the benefit or who, worse still, should face criminality or even potential incarceration.

I cannot say how horrified I am that the Government should have proceeded with a measure of this kind even as we still learn about the extent of the injustice perpetrated on the postmasters. After what we are just beginning to understand about the postmasters, I cannot understand why the Government would allow this kind of discriminatory intrusion to be turbocharged by AI and inflict the potential for the same type of injustice—not just for a limited cohort of people who were unfortunate enough to be serving their communities by working as postmasters—on millions of people in the United Kingdom.

This is what Committee on a Bill is for. I will therefore calm myself in the knowledge and belief—and certainly the hope—that, in his response, the Minister will at least offer to meet with Members of the Committee who have put their names to the clause stand part notice from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and with campaigners and experts to hear a little about the detail of the concerns and to compare this provision with the other provisions, as the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, suggested in relation to national security, or indeed for tax fraud. Nobody is suggesting that fraud should be perpetrated with impunity, but we must learn from the mistakes of injustices already perpetrated. They are perpetrated because of blanket trust in the authorities and AI and a lack of checks and balances. There were plenty of humans in the loop at the Post Office, but that is not enough. This is a sweeping power that will lead only to intrusion, discrimination and the worst kind of injustice. In the meantime, before that moment even comes, millions of people will live in fear.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, I will address, first, the exclusion of Clause 128 and, secondly, Amendment 219 in my name.

I spoke at Second Reading to oppose Clause 128. I was a little too late to put my name to the clause stand part notice in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Anderson. I would therefore like to address a few things relating to that before I move on.

This clause creates two kinds of citizen: those who are entitled to financial privacy and others who are not entitled to any privacy, just because they happen to be poor, old, sick, disabled, infirm and unfortunate. Hopefully, the Minister can explain the rationale for creating this form of discrimination. This discrimination will particularly affect women, because a lot of women receive social security benefits, and people of colour, who are generally paid poorly and often have to rely upon universal credit and other benefits to make ends meet. Hopefully the Minister will also be able to tell us how this squares with the levelling-up agenda. Certainly this clause does not really provide any fairness at all.

I have received lots of emails and letters and met individuals who are very concerned, as earlier speakers articulated, that they will be made homeless because their landlords will not want their bank accounts to be put under surveillance. What assessment have the Government made of the impact that this clause may have on future homelessness?

Child Poverty: Ethnicity

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, today, the political community reels from accusations made by the Government’s former most senior adviser that so many lives were cut needlessly short by a wanton disregard for their value during last year’s pandemic management. Surely we can at least come together with the pledge that no child should ever have their life blighted by hunger in the sixth wealthiest jurisdiction on the planet.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, a legendary campaigner for social justice, for this timely provocation, and I congratulate him on his new role in Cambridge. The Minister knows of my respect for her and my belief that she is one of most genuinely compassionate voices in a less-than-compassionate Government. I therefore ask her today whether she will consider using her voice to urge the Government to legislate for a right to food in the United Kingdom. I ask her to consider the enormous public health, educational and life expectancy benefits of providing a nutritious pre-school breakfast and a lunch for every single child in compulsory education. I urge her also, in the interests of better scrutiny and governance, to consider a new statutory duty on the Secretary of State to set out how much of any welfare benefit or legal minimum wage has been calculated for food. Will she meet me and other right-to-food campaigners after the Recess to discuss our proposals for the most basic levelling up of all?

As for the forthcoming half-term holiday, I wish all noble Lords safe and peaceful breaks, but I also fear for all those children and families who will undoubtedly struggle adequately to feed themselves during this period. How can we justify being a country of food banks next to investment banks? How can we justify even those in work on the front line of infection struggling to feed their families? How can we give thanks for a single meal with our own families while so many children go badly nourished or undernourished?