Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate has made a very convincing, strong argument for retaining income and, as he pointed out, deprivation measures. We talk about income measures as shorthand but it is important to remember that the measures in the Child Poverty Act include a deprivation measure.

The 2012 consultation, to which the right reverend Prelate referred, said:

“There can be no doubt that income is a key part of our understanding of child poverty … Household income has a significant impact on childhood and life chances … The impact of growing up in a low income household can last a lifetime”.

That consultation was premised on income being one element of a multidimensional measure, and it made it clear that the Government are not playing a zero-sum game with child poverty measurement as between income and multidimensional indicators. It is not clear what has changed since then. Why have the Government changed their view on that? Do they no longer believe that income is important, despite the evidence, as the right reverend Prelate said, from their own life chances review, which made very clear the impact of low-income, low-material resources on life chances, and despite the advice that they received from their own Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission? Its response to the consultation was that any new multidimensional measure,

“should be supplementary to the existing framework”,

and it looked to the Government to make clear their commitment,

“to maintain the centrality of income in measuring poverty”.

More recently, it said that it is simply not credible to try to improve the life chances of poor children without acknowledging the importance of income on those life chances and that, without an assessment of income, any measure would be inadequate.

As the right reverend Prelate said, the response to the consultation was overwhelmingly in favour of maintaining measures of income and deprivation. That included a response from the Royal Statistical Society, the academic scientific community and civil society organisations. In Committee, my noble friend Lady Blackstone, who is not in her place today, asked what alternative scientific advice the Government had to, in a sense, overturn that overwhelming response, but I do not think that we heard an answer to that.

It may seem rather academic and people may ask: why are we talking about measures; what does this matter? Actually, it matters a lot, and it is quite significant that a petition has been presented. Over 50,000 people care enough about this, and one woman in the country collected these signatures because people do care. If there is no statutory obligation for income and deprivation measures, it looks as though the Government think it simply does not matter if people do not have a sufficient income to live on.

There is no mention of targets in the amendment, unlike the amendment that was put forward in Committee, acknowledging, as the right reverend Prelate said, that the Government are reluctant to sign up to targets. In Committee, all I heard in response to the arguments put was an argument against targets. I did not hear any convincing argument against low-income and deprivation measures. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will think again and respond positively to the right reverend Prelate’s amendment.

[Lord Northbourne (CB)]

My Lords, on this kind of issue I am usually very much on the side of those who are sorry for those who have problems. But I think a much stronger case would be made if the amendment could be rephrased so as to take into account the possibility that, at times, the family themselves ought to do more to create the income that they so desperately need. I have not come prepared with any evidence but, being involved in issues around child poverty, I hear a good deal to suggest that a number of families prefer to live on benefits rather than go to work. I do not blame them for doing that, but I think they should share their responsibility in providing that income which, indeed, is so essential.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend is aware that of the children in poverty who we are discussing at the moment, two-thirds have parents who are in work. The majority of the children we are discussing have parents who are in work.