Child Poverty Act 2010 (Persistent Poverty Target) Regulations 2014

Lord McAvoy Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord McAvoy (Lab)]

My Lords, I open by getting it on the record that the last Labour Government lifted more than 1 million children out of poverty. In passing the Child Poverty Act 2010, Parliament enshrined into law the commitment of the then Labour Government to prioritise—a word that I will come back to—the fight against child poverty. A central aspect of this legislation dictates that appropriate targets be set for poverty reduction and that future Governments be held to account for their success in reducing the number of children and families living in poverty.

My noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett mentioned one or two points made by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. It is worth putting on record that its 11th report states:

“These Regulations are drawn to the special attention of the House on the ground that the explanatory material laid in support provides insufficient information to gain a clear understanding about the instrument’s policy objective and intended implementation”.

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[Lord Freud]

The targets are in secondary legislation, and it would be up to a future Government, for which at this stage I cannot talk, to change secondary legislation. In practice, yes; it is a changeable target.

As I said in my opening remarks, we are committed to tackling child poverty, and we have a strong record. Relative child poverty is at its lowest level for 30 years—a fact that will perhaps surprise the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy. There are 300,000 fewer children in relative poverty since the election, and now 390,000 fewer children are growing up in workless families. We are especially committed to tackling persistent poverty and to breaking the cycle which sees poor children grow up to become poor adults. That is why I am proud to present these regulations before the Committee today, which set an ambitious persistent poverty target of less than 7% of all children in the UK, meeting our obligations under the Child Poverty Act 2010.

[Lord McAvoy]

The noble Lord did not respond to many of my points because, as I understand it, he dismissed them as being wrong. Can I respectfully ask him if he could help me by writing to me, outlining what parts of my speech were factually wrong and what the answers were to them? I am sure that he would not want to be thought to be making a cheap accusation—a cheap note—and I am sure that he will recognise his responsibility by writing to me, giving the details of what he said.

[Lord Freud]

I will, with great pleasure, note down and send to the noble Lord the figures, which I think I have used in the past, about how the income of the richest 20% has moved relative to the poorest 20% under this Government. I will provide him with those precise figures. I commend the regulations to the Committee.