Child Poverty in the UK (Target for Reduction) Bill

Kate Green Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 3rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

My hon. Friend speaks with real authority on this matter, which I know is very important to her personally. I agree with her, and let us be clear: this House has previously united behind that principle, most notably in enacting the Child Poverty Act 2010.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this important Bill. He is right to emphasise the importance of targets, and we should note the fact that targets work. Labour set its targets to reduce child poverty by a quarter by 2005 and by half by 2010. Does he agree that when we began to see progress falling back, adjusting action was able to be taken, which meant that more than 1 million children were removed from poverty under Labour?

[Dan Jarvis]

My hon. Friend speaks with huge knowledge, experience and authority, and she is absolutely right. Today’s debate represents an opportunity for all of us in this place to send out a clear statement of intent that our goal is that no child should have to grow up in poverty, and that we will hold ourselves accountable and measure progress through the target that we seek to set.

Why is it so urgent that we set a target? The Resolution Foundation highlights falling living standards among the least well-off, as a combination of rising inflation, welfare cuts and lower pay increases hits. It warns that for the poorest, this Parliament will be the worst for living standards since records began and the worst for inequality since the 1980s.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Time is very tight, so I will speak for only a short time. I warmly welcome this important Bill. Prior to entering this House, I was part of a coalition of well over 100 organisations that came together in the End Child Poverty campaign to press for the legislation that was eventually passed with cross-party support and became the Child Poverty Act 2010. As my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) said, the Act set out targets for the reduction of child poverty across four measures—not just one target, but a range. More importantly, however, it also highlighted the need for cross-Government and cross-civil society strategies to address all the dimensions of poverty: housing, education, employment, parenting, and child wellbeing.

Between 1997 and 2010, as Labour set about reducing child poverty and set targets for doing so, we saw that targets are the most powerful tool we have for driving progress and measuring and taking action when progress falters. It is right that the Government continue to emphasise the importance of addressing poverty with their new measures, but when two thirds of children in poverty grow up in families where someone is in paid work, a target that simply looks at worklessness misses one of the key and perhaps most disgraceful aspects of child poverty today: no working parent should be struggling to provide and care for their children. That shames our country. It shames a country as rich as ours that one in four children continues to grow up poor.

I know that there is a consensus right around the House on the importance of the Bill that my hon. Friend has brought forward this afternoon. We need more than warm words. We need meaningful targets, established in legislation and committed to by Government, and the determination, the policies and the resources to achieve them. It can be done. It must be.