Child Poverty

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, we have taken strong action to support working families. We now have the national living wage and so on, but I agree entirely with the noble Lord that it is incredibly important to look closely at low pay and issues around debt. The Government are doing this, and indeed it is something that is close to my heart. Sometimes debt goes to the heart of why people are in poverty. We need to get much closer to this issue and in the coming months we will be introducing a breathing space to help people out of debt. We are also keen to ensure that children learn how to cope with money because that, as well as a low-wage economy, is often at the core of where things go wrong.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, evidence from teachers, civil society organisations—including, just yesterday, Human Rights Watch—and children themselves on the impact of poverty, aggravated by social security cuts, on children’s learning, health and well-being is shameful and heartbreaking. This impact is not captured by the official poverty statistics, so what steps will the Government take to measure the impact of their policies on the depth of child poverty in and out of work? This and other evidence suggests that their policies are pushing children further and further below the poverty line.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I cannot agree with the noble Baroness that our policies are doing that; in fact, they are doing precisely the opposite. We have increased in an enormous number of ways the support—not just financial but practical—we give to children in low-income families. Indeed, the previous Question illustrates that. On how we measure poverty, the noble Baroness is right: we should debate, and have debated, looking at how we measure poverty. That is why on 17 May the Minister for Family Support, Housing and Child Maintenance announced that new experimental statistics to measure poverty will be developed, working with the Social Metrics Commission and published by DWP in 2020. We are looking to rethink the measures of poverty.