The
Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Stephen
Timms): I bid you a warm welcome to the Chair of our
Committee, Mr. Key; I look forward to the debates ahead. The
hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire helpfully prompted an
interesting debate, which has taken us to the heart of the question,
“What is the Bill for?” I entirely accept that the
amendments are well meaning, as the hon. Member for Northavon said, but
if agreed to they would detract from the Bill’s clarity of
purpose, as others
said. The
opening debate is a good opportunity for that clarity to be achieved.
We can be straightforward: the Bill is about tackling
poverty—income poverty and material deprivation. Our aim is that
children in the UK should not live in poverty, so the Bill deliberately
has a tight focus on income and material deprivation. The reason for
that is the evidence of poverty’s impact on children’s
lives—on their experiences now and on their chances for the
future. The evidence is clear and is set out in some of the documents
to which the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire drew attention.
Poverty blights children’s lives: it impacts on their education,
health, social lives, relationships with their parents—sometimes
on the relationship between parents—and future life
chances.
Mr.
Gauke: In the light of what the Minister has just said
about income poverty, can he explain why over the past three years the
Government have not increased the level of tax credits necessary to
meet their 2010 child poverty
target?
Mr.
Timms: Of course, we have increased tax credits
consistently over the past three years. The 2010 target is going to be
difficult to hit, as we discussed in Committee
last week. However, we have made a great deal of progress in reducing
child poverty: we have reduced the figure by 500,000 according to the
most recent data, and we have agreed and legislated for measures that
we anticipate will lift another 500,000 children above the poverty
line. That is very substantial progress, particularly when compared
with what happened between 1979 and 1997, when the level of child
poverty in the UK more than doubled to become the highest in Europe.
That was a disgrace. We have not only arrested that trend but reversed
it—I hope decisively. I welcome the fact that on Second Reading
there was unanimous support for the Bill across the House, which
reflects the recognition—in contrast with the view taken in the
past—that poverty is a blight on the lives of children and on
the country that needs to be
addressed.
Mr.
Stuart: Will the Minister give
way?
Mr.
Timms: Let me make a couple more points and then I shall
gladly give way to the hon. Gentleman. I want to comment on
what he said. I sensed from his remarks that he was arguing that income
poverty may not be that important, and there are other things that may
be important. Of course there are other important things, but the key
to the Bill is the conviction that income poverty—living below
the poverty line—for children should end. That strong conviction
drives the Bill, and I hope the hon. Gentleman accepts
that.
Mr.
Stuart: The Minister is right to say that income poverty
is a blight. Those outside the House will find it extraordinary that
the Government oppose an amendment that would ensure that such a Bill
puts the causes of child poverty—the broad basket of issues that
successive Governments have signally failed to tackle—at its
heart. Instead the Government fixate on income only, and thus do not
ensure that the broader range of issues is tackled. The amendment would
at least ensure that the causes of poverty are at the heart of the
Bill—not just the quick fix that the Government are not even
prepared to employ for next year’s target of more tax
credits.
Mr.
Timms: People listening to and reading the debate will be
much more likely to agree with my hon. Friends the Members for Amber
Valley and for Regent’s Park and Kensington, North: poverty is
an overriding concern. As others have said, it is right for the Bill to
focus tightly on that concern, rather than on lots of things. The
amendment suggests that instead, the Bill should cover a wider range of
policy areas and set targets through regulations on a wide range of
outcomes relating to child poverty. It is true that they relate to
child poverty; they are not irrelevant or unrelated and it is important
to tackle them. Indeed, there are Government proposals and measures in
place to tackle them, and there are targets, but we should not have
targets in the Bill. That would water down the bright spotlight on
poverty, which is the Bill’s great
strength.
John
Howell: I am slightly confused by that argument. The
Minister has already admitted that the Bill contains not just income
targets but targets relating to material deprivation, so surely that
already widens the Bill. The problem is the evidence given by Neil
O’Brien that the material deprivation data are not solid. Why
have an imperfect definition outside the income ranges for those
targets when we could have a better one?
Mr.
Timms: As others have said, there is not a single number
that tells us about poverty. That is why we have taken the view, which
has been widely supported by those who have looked at this issue, that
there should be four measures, all four of which I would defend. The
hon. Member for Northavon indicated that he will take a contrary view
on at least one of them. All four measures are about poverty, how much
income people have, how much they are able to buy and whether they
suffer from material deprivation. That focus is clear. I
will resist suggestions that we ought to water that down by looking at
a load of other things as well.
Mr.
Gauke: Will the Minister give
way?
Mr.
Timms: Let me make one more point on this issue. I am not
sure that the amendments would result in a broad strategy to tackle
child poverty, as has been argued. The target should cover our ultimate
goal—the outcome that we seek to achieve—not the range of
policies and other topics likely to be addressed as part of an
effective
strategy.
11.15
am The
strategy needs to be multifaceted if we are to end child poverty, but
specifying targets, and specifying measures for a range of policy
areas, would reduce its effectiveness and result potentially in a focus
on those eight areas, rather than other things which equally need to be
addressed. It is a pretty selective list. A much better approach would
be to ask, what are we trying to achieve? We are attempting to achieve
the eradication of child poverty. That will be our
target.
Mr.
Stuart: Will the Minister give way on that
point?
Mr.
Timms: I will give way first to the hon. Member for
South-West
Hertfordshire.
Mr.
Gauke: The Minister is generous, as ever. I seek clarity
on his approach to tackling child poverty. It seems that there was a
stage when the Government argued that the way to reduce child poverty
was simply through better benefits and tax credits and such transfers
of resources. In recent years the Government’s emphasis has been
more on tackling what we consider the long-term causes of poverty. It
is not clear from what the Minister has said today quite where he
stands. Does he believe essentially that the child poverty target set
out in the Bill will be met by transfers of resources, such as tax
credits and child benefit? Or does he believe it is about addressing
what we would consider the causes of poverty? What is his
position?
Mr.
Timms: It will need to be both. Given the substantial
investment in education, child care, Sure Start centres and other
public services over the past 10 years, we will benefit in
the coming decade more than in the past, simply because that investment
and those services are now in place. Some of the children who benefited
from that investment will have their own children by
2020.
Mr.
Stuart: On exactly that point, we have not seen the
reduction in the number of NEETs for which we
would have hoped from measures such as Sure Start centres. Let us assume
hypothetically that over the coming years we see a big reduction in the
number of children leaving primary school unable to read or count
properly, from the current scandalous level of one in five to a much
lower level. Let us assume that over the coming years, we see a massive
reduction in teenage pregnancies and other causes that help to put
people into poverty. Let us say that we are making enormous progress in
a way that we have not over the past 10 years. Would the
Minister really want to see us take funding from those successful
programmes in order to increase benefits, when we were making progress
on the root causes of poverty that have made Britain the most miserable
place in which a child can be brought
up?
Mr.
Timms: We have, of course, seen significant improvements
in education standards in primary schools. Many more young people
leaving primary and secondary school are
achieving—
Mr.
Stuart: That is hotly
disputed.
Mr.
Timms: I do not think it is hotly disputed. The evidence
is actually very clear. We have seen substantial gains, including
progress in reducing the incidence of teenage pregnancy.
The child
poverty strategy will set out the specific actions that need to be
taken. The development of the strategy will identify those groups of
children most at risk of being in poverty, including particularly
vulnerable groups, and the underlying causes of poverty: the kind of
things set out in the amendments. Annual reports will enable us to
monitor progress, tracking a wide range of indicators. I imagine those
indicators are likely to change, as circumstances change over the
coming decade. The ultimate goal— the end of child
poverty—will be unchanged. It is right that that should be at
the heart of the
Bill. The
hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire mentioned the publication of
“Opportunity for all”. The Under-Secretary of State for
Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland
wrote to Members of the Committee late yesterday about that, to set out
that the Department for Work and Pensions is considering what form in
which to continue publishing that information. The data are included in
other documents, such as annual departmental reports, reports on public
service agreements and so on. My hon. Friend is considering the issue
at the moment, recognising the interest that there is and has been in
“Opportunity for
all”. The
Bill requires all four of the targets to be met. The hon. Member for
Northavon said that perhaps in 10 years’ time someone
would say, “We’ve done two of them, that’s not too
bad”, but the terms of the Bill are clear—all four
targets need to be
hit. I
hope that the Committee will accept that it is right for the Bill to
have the tight focus on poverty—no ifs and no buts—and
that the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire will withdraw the
amendment.
Andrew
Selous: I am grateful to all hon. Members who have spoken.
We have had a wide-ranging and important debate on the amendment and
new clause.
Let me scotch the idea straight away that the amendment constitutes some
sort of Conservative get-out, to water down the Bill, as the Minister
said, or to let the Government off the hook, as the hon. Member for
Northavon said. It is nothing of the kind. Clauses 2 to 5 remain in the
Bill—they have not been amended and Conservative Members have
not proposed to take them out. Our attempt is purely to get appropriate
targets—the right targets—in the Bill, so that we drive
policy in the right direction and get the correct balance between
symptoms and
causes. The
principle definition that we use is shifting people from below 60 per
cent. of median income to just above. An analogy that I often use is
that if one of us were to knock on the door of a home in our
constituency and find a family in which income had moved from 58 per
cent. of median to 61 per cent., Ministers would claim that that was a
family taken out of poverty. They would be correct in a purely
statistical sense—that is what would have been achieved
according to the Government terms. However, if we sat down and spent
some time with that family, we would probably be told that, yes, they
did have a bit more money, which was important and for which they were
grateful, but that the deep-seated problems that led to ongoing
difficulties in their lives were still there. New clause 3 and
amendment 59 try to deal with the
issue. To
make a further point to the Minister, in 1987 the rate of child poverty
was 23 per cent., as it was in 2007, the last year for which we have
figures. Over a 20-year period the rate has not shifted much, so it is
time for a new approach. I shall seek to divide the Committee on
amendment
59. Question
put, That the amendment be
made. The
Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes
11.
Division
No.
1] Question
accordingly negatived.
Steve
Webb: I beg to move amendment 21, in
clause 1, page 1, line 11, at
end insert— ‘(3) The
Secretary of State shall also ensure that interim targets for child
poverty are met in relation to the United Kingdom in the financial year
beginning with 1 April 2015, where such interim targets are specified
by the Child Poverty
Commission.’. The
amendment seeks to put into the Bill an interim target, which is
halfway between now and the target date or, alternatively,
three-quarters of the way from when the promise was first made about 10
years ago. Given the length of our previous debate, I shall endeavour
both to be brief and to encompass any remarks that I
might otherwise have made on a clause stand part debate, which may be a
position shared across the Committee. On the 2015
targets and why we might want them, one of the worries about where we
are in 2009-10 is the economic situation. We will be going through a
difficult five-year period, when the public finances will be in a mess
and we may even have legislation to put them on an even keel, so it
will be hard to make much progress in the next five years, frankly.
When there was, on the face of it, plenty of spare Government
cash—we can debate whether there was—it was relatively
straightforward, when the economy was growing rapidly and things looked
good, to find money to boost tax credits. Even in those halcyon days,
as they now seem, we could not meet the targets.
We missed the
five-year target and we missed the 10-year target by more, so it is not
hard to see that the next five years will be more difficult than the
preceding 10 and, therefore, pro rata we will miss the 15-year
benchmark by even more. One option says, “Well, that
doesn’t matter because the only number that matters is 2020.
We’re going to have rolling reports and the child poverty
commission will tell us how we are getting on and there will be
pressure to keep on track, so we don’t need to worry.” It
is true, obviously, that we have not had a child poverty commission for
the past 10 years, so we have not had that external discipline. The
worry is that the momentum, such as we have had bearing in mind that
child poverty has risen for the past two years, will be lost
irreparably in the next five
years. We
may get to 2015 even further behind schedule and it will have become
impossible to hit the 2020 target. At that point, the legitimate
concern about the Bill as a whole becomes relevant: if we do not have
the interim target to keep us on track, we run the risk of running
round pulling the only lever available to us, which is income transfer.
In a sense, that is a comment for a stand part debate. One reason for a
2015 target is to say, “We need to act now to deliver in
2015”, so we do not get to 2015, miss the target, have no
enforcement mechanism and realise that the only thing that we can do is
rely on cash transfers, which, although a very important part of the
mix, are clearly not the whole story. We have just had that
debate. The
2015 target is a valuable interim target. The Minister may say that the
Secretary of State will give us three-year strategies reflecting on
progress to date, and the child poverty commission will tell us, advise
us and do all the rest. That would have some force if we felt that the
child poverty commission had real clout. Obviously, we will debate in
greater detail the clout of the child poverty commission, but it is
relevant here because I am concerned that it is a weak institution
compared with other analogous bodies, such as the Low Pay
Commission—the minimum wage recommendations of which Governments
have great difficulty ignoring—and the Committee on Climate
Change, which has had a huge influence already and even before it
existed had a huge influence in shadow form. The child poverty
commission will be 14 people meeting four times a year, plus two
members of staff and a hired meeting room. That is it. The idea that it
will hold a Government to account for what the regulatory impact
assessment says is £400 billion of spending over 10 years is
implausible. We need a body with more teeth.
The amendment
gives us a binding interim target. What that should be is clearly a
separate question. There is an argument that it should not be half the
distance between here and there, because some investments are longer
term and will yield fruits later in the decade, but we need to be
explicit and transparent. That argument could become a great get-out
clause for the next Government, who could say, “We’ve
sown all the seeds but you will not see the fruit till 2018 or 2019, so
don’t worry about the fact that we are miles away from our
target in 2015, it’ll be okay.” If we can do all those
things by 2020 but they will not flower by 2015, let us be explicit,
transparent and
accountable. To
sum up, we have not had a statutory target hitherto. The Bill gives us
one at the end of the period, but we will not know if that has been
achieved until 2022 or some time, so the worry is that we have no real
toothy accountability.
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