Tax Credits

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord is referring to a television programme with David Dimbleby. The PM said that,

“child tax credit, we increased by £450”.

The presenter asked:

“And it’s not going to fall?”.

The PM confirmed:

“It’s not going to fall”.

The award has not changed. It is £2,780 and it was before.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister explain how the new focus on changing people’s life chances will be more effective in addressing the root causes of poverty than the child poverty targets introduced by the last Labour Government?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, my noble friend’s question slightly moves away from tax credits on to the welfare Bill, which this House is going to consider in a couple of weeks’ time. We are working to end child poverty, and until now, the talk about poverty has been caught up in the old mindset of an arbitrary limit, and this needs to change. The existing statutory framework, which was set around four income-related targets, is flawed because it focuses the government action on tackling the symptoms, rather than the root causes, of child poverty. This new system will focus on the root causes of poverty: there will be two new measures—educational attainment and the number of children in workless households—plus various non-statutory life-chance indicators. The Second Reading of the welfare Bill is on 17 November.