Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Falkner of Margravine and Lord Storey

Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for his tour de force. One thing he did not say was that, as soon as children, particularly children from low-income families, go into school, the gap in their learning narrows as a result of child poverty. Growing up in poverty is strongly linked to lower educational outcomes, worse health and reduced lifetime earnings. As of 2022-23, 4.3 million children, 29%, in the UK lived in relative poverty. Rates are higher for single-parent and minority-ethnic families. An estimated £500 million in unpaid child maintenance exists, and many lone parents do not receive the money that is due to them. The Child Poverty Act 2010 led to measurable progress until—and this is crucial—the targets were removed in 2016. During that period, child poverty fell from 28% to 20%.

We could all get involved in talking about the effects of child poverty, but the amendment is about saying, “We need to have targets”, and that is absolutely right. You cannot go on a journey unless you know what you want to achieve and measure as you go along. I will repeat the evidence to support that: the Child Poverty Act 2010 had targets, and it led to improvements. As soon as those targets were removed, child poverty fell from 28% to 20%. What does that tell us? Does that tell us targets are right or that they are not the best way of moving forward? I do not know, but my common sense tells me that you need to have targets to understand where you are going. I do not understand what I am saying, to be quite honest, because I thought the targets were—

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I have not spoken on the Bill, but I have been present for quite a lot of the debates. I am slightly confused by the what the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, and I wonder whether he meant to phrase it like that. He said that when the targets were removed, child poverty fell from 28% to 20%. Does he mean it the other way round—that it rose, rather than fell? I just wondered whether he might be able to clarify that.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I have to be careful here with what I say. When are you are in Committee, you are dealing with dozens of amendments, and you get handed briefs to do that. Initially, I read that to be the way the noble Baroness said it. But when I read it again, I thought, “This does not make sense. Could it be the other way round?” I slightly inwardly panicked and thought, “I am not going to mislead the Committee and say something that is not correct”. I am going to put that down and say that my common sense tells me that if you are doing something, you need to know where you are going on that journey. You need to be able to understand that a target is set and ask, “Have I reached that target or not?” The best example of that is—