Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Benjamin and Baroness Pinnock

Report stage
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and thank her for her commitment to striving for fairness and equality and to eradicating child poverty for the nation’s most disadvantaged children.

An effective way in which the Government could improve our children’s health and well-being is to tackle child poverty. To do that, there must be a clear strategy. What better way to do that than by placing this amendment as a mission in the levelling-up Bill, to reduce the proportion of children of all ages living in poverty? Surely it is an obvious place for this amendment to sit.

The evidence on child poverty and its disastrous effects is becoming increasingly apparent. The Households Below Average Income report published by the DWP states that 350,000 more children were pulled into relative poverty in 2021-22. That means that 4.2 million children—29% of our UK children—were in poverty, up from 3.6 million in 2010-11. This is worrying because it will only continue to rise in 2023, given the cost of living crisis and the high mortgage rates hitting families harder and harder by the month.

Research has shown that there are geographical disparities across our nation, but there are also significant differences between the child poverty rates in ethnic groups. Children from black and minority-ethnic groups are much more likely to be in poverty—48%, compared with 25% of children in white families.

It is also disheartening to know that work does not provide a guaranteed route out of poverty in the UK. Unbelievably, 71% of children growing up in poverty live in a household where at least one person works. Is that not depressing? Between 1998 and 2003, reducing child poverty was made a priority. There was a comprehensive strategy and investment in children. The number of children in poverty fell by 600,000. That is what you call a mission of levelling up.

As I keep saying, childhood lasts a lifetime, so it makes financial sense to invest in our children as early as possible. Perhaps having a Cabinet-level Minister for children would help this mission. This year, research by the Child Poverty Action Group showed that child poverty cost the economy almost £40 billion a year.

In order for children to function at their best, especially in school, they need a proper, balanced diet. Shamefully, we are seeing a nutritional postcode lottery for our children. For example, some fantastic work is being done in London, meaning that all children in primary schools will receive a free school meal. In boroughs such as Tower Hamlets, all secondary school children will do too. Yet, if you travel outside of London to areas known for economic deprivation and high levels of child poverty, we find that the same children in need of a decent meal are unable to receive a free school meal, unlike their counterparts in London.

Without lifting children out of poverty, levelling up will not have the long-term positive impact that the Government hope to achieve through the Bill. If child poverty keeps at this high level and keeps on growing, children’s prospects will suffer, cancelling out any other positive aspects of the Bill. I plead with the Government and all noble Lords to support this amendment, whose mission is to reduce the number of children of all ages living in poverty in all its forms, as one of the Bill’s levelling-up missions.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments seeks to persuade the Government to be more specific about the missions and metrics of levelling up. I wish to speak initially to Amendment 8 in my name.

I remain very disappointed that the Government have failed to include their White Paper missions in the Bill. It makes me ask whether there is some shame on the Government’s part in stating clearly in legislation that our country has the worst levels of regional inequality of any part of the European Union, and whether the Government are committed to addressing those inequalities with determination and sustained funding.

Amendment 8 challenges the Government to include in the Bill the missions so clearly set out in the White Paper. All my amendment does is repeat those missions. They are not perfect, and they are necessarily the ones Liberal Democrats would include. We would perhaps include something more specific on health inequalities and life expectancy, which is one of the missions, and we would include child poverty more specifically than do the ones on deprivation in the White Paper. However, those are the missions the Government have chosen and they will do a good job—if the Government keep to them, and to the metrics in the addendum to the levelling-up White Paper.

I accept the argument that the Minister gave last time, that missions change over time. Of course they do, and my amendment makes it clear that they will and that the Government should change them. However, that an entire Bill should fail to list what the missions are seems to me a failure of government ambition and determination. At the moment, the Government will set out their missions after the Bill has been enacted. Perhaps the Minister will be able tell us whether they will include all the elements in the White Paper.