Ms
Keeble: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the school
leaving age is going up to 18? By providing support through the
education maintenance allowance, which is highly valued in my
constituency, so that children may stay on at school beyond 16 to 18,
are not the Government providing more support to 16 to 18-year-olds
than has been given
previously?
Mr.
Timms: My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the
increase in support for that group. I was going to mention the increase
in support for another group who have rightly been
mentioned—care leavers. Support for that important group was
addressed by the Children and Young Persons Act 2008. My hon. Friend is
right to draw attention to the additional funding and support that we
are
providing. The
hon. Member for Northavon anticipated that I would make this next
point. If we are to meet the targets in the Bill in a sustainable way,
national and local strategies will need to go wider than the definition
of children that is used in the target, and will certainly
cover youth unemployment and training. As my hon. Friend the Member for
Northampton, North has pointed out, we have raised the participation
age. We are also ensuring that all young people benefit from education
or training, whether combined with work or not, through the future jobs
fund, which supports young people into employment. The European
Union has started to publish data on poverty among under-18s. On the
most recent data that it has published, for 2007, it is exactly the
same as the proportion in child poverty under the households with below
average income statistics. As the European Union series
emerges—it was first published in 2005—it will enable the
level of poverty in that group to be tracked.
I shall sum
up my argument with two points. First, it is right to refer to
dependent children in the way in which the Bill does, because that is
what most people understand by the term “child”.
Secondly, that approach has the great strength of giving us a
continuous data series for comparison, going back to 1961, I
think. 5
pm
Steve
Webb: I am grateful to the Minister. I am sure that my
former colleagues at the Institute for Fiscal Studies would enjoy
reworking the data back to 1961 on a slightly different definition. I
have to say that I am not convinced by the argument. The Minister says,
“We have done worthwhile things for 17-year-olds who are not
defined as children.” I am sure that the Government have done
that, and can therefore get the credit for those things if they are
included in the scope of the Bill. We can have consistent data over
time on a range of definitions, because we know from the data what the
17-year-olds who were not in education were doing. We would therefore
know who is excluded and who we would want to start including, if we
agreed to the amendment. I return to my central point, which is that we
are making arbitrary and
artificial—
Mr.
Timms: This is a small point, but I do not think that we
have the data going back to 1961 for under-18s in poverty—that
would be difficult. However, we know the figure for children, as
defined in the
Bill.
Steve
Webb: A 17-year-old who responded to the family
expenditure survey in 1961 as an adult, because they had left school,
would presumably have had to say what they were doing. I assume,
therefore, that the survey would show whether they were in employment
or getting benefits, and if they were getting benefits in their own
right they would have been counted as a separate benefit unit. I seem
to recall that the Minister had that data, but I am open to
correction. The
amendment is worthwhile and important. We need meaningful definitions
and I therefore seek to test the opinion of the
Committee. Question
put, That the amendment be
made. The
Committee divided: Ayes 2, Noes
7.
Division
No.
10]
Question
accordingly negatived.
Clause 25
ordered to stand part of the
Bill. Clauses
26 to 30 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
New
Clause
12010
poverty target ‘(1) The
Secretary of State must, before the end of the period of three months
beginning with the day on which the Act is passed, publish and lay
before Parliament a report setting out an assessment of progress made
towards meeting the 2010
target. (2) The 2010 target is
that in the financial year beginning with 1 April 2010, fewer than 1.7
million children live in households that fall within the relevant
income group as defined by section
2(2).’.—(Mr.
Gauke.) Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Mr.
Gauke: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time. Our
debates on the Bill have generally, I hope, been constructively
conducted, but there is no doubt that there is a view of the Bill that
could be described as cynical and sceptical, and which has been
advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness on
one or two occasions. That view is that the Bill is essentially
distraction legislation. At the very point when the Government are
about to fail to meet their 2010 target, which has been in place since
the late 1990s, they have come up with a new idea—a Bill to
enshrine a target for 2020. One can imagine someone sitting around
somewhere in the Treasury looking at forthcoming issues, spotting a bit
of a problem with the 2010 child poverty target and saying,
“What are we going to do about it? We’ll come up with a
Bill enshrining a target for 2020 and nobody will particularly mind,
because we have our eyes on the slightly more distant horizon and all
will be well”. In other words, it is a case of, “Do not
judge us on what we deliver, judge us on our intentions,” which,
if one wanted to make a partisan point, has often been the approach of
this Government.
New clause 1
intends to return us to the here and now—the nitty-gritty of
delivery on previously announced targets to ensure that they do not go
by the wayside and that the distraction legislation approach does not
work. The Bill enshrines something more demanding than the 2010 target.
As the Financial Secretary said:
“The
arrangement that the Bill sets out is significantly more demanding for
the coming decade than the arrangements that have been in place over
the past 10 years.”——[Official Report,
Child Poverty Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2009; c. 8,
Q17.] That is
all very well; we are supportive of the objective of the Bill. However,
we should not forget the 2010 target and I hope the Government do not
give up on it. The Minister, in his evidence, said that they have
certainly not given up on it. In a moment, I will set out in further
detail why this new clause would be very
constructive.
Mr.
Gauke: I am very grateful to give
way.
Steve
Webb: I will speak at length while the hon. Gentleman has
a drink. The base line figure is 3.1 million, I think, for
the before-housing-costs measure in 1998-99, so getting halfway there
would be 1.55 million, if going halfway to zero. He has a figure of 1.7
million. Is that because he is going only halfway to 10 per cent.? I am
not quite sure why a figure of 1.7 million has been
chosen.
Mr.
Gauke: That is the basis of the number, as I understand
it. The hon. Gentleman is now looking at me sceptically. On the basis
of the shortfall that the Government refer to, one sees a figure of
600,000 and at the moment we are on 2.3 million, so I think that that
was where we got the 1.7 million number.
Mr.
Timms: I might be able to shed some light on this. The
base figure is 3.4 million children below the poverty line, so 50 per
cent. would be 1.7 million. The IFS estimate was that we would get to
1.1 million, hence the 600,000
figure.
Mr.
Gauke: I am grateful to the Minister for providing that
clarification. Having made the political knockabout point on why new
clause 1 would be helpful to prevent the
Government—
Mr.
Gauke: But before I move on, I give way to my hon.
Friend.
Mr.
Stuart: My hon. Friend takes the words out of my mouth.
Political knockabout is holding this Government to account, ensuring
that cynicism is not the driving purpose behind a piece of legislation
dealing with such an important issue. The new clause is a perfect
opportunity for the Government to show that their intentions are not
cynical or there to distract, but serious and proper. If they accept
the new clause, they will show that they are prepared to be held to
account for 2010, as well as for their far away
promises.
Mr.
Gauke: My hon. Friend anticipates and exactly explains my
argument. New clause 1 is constructive. The purpose of the Bill,
described by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is to hold
the Government’s feet to the fire. That is a good expression,
but why should we not hold the Government’s feet to the fire
with regard to the 2010 target? We also hear the argument that the Bill
forces Governments to have strategies and reports, and to focus their
mind. I think that argument is persuasive, but why not start that
process sooner rather than later? Why not have some analysis in a
proper report to Parliament on what has worked? Why has there been
progress in reducing the number of children in relative poverty living
in workless households, but not in working families, as pointed out by
the Institute for Public Policy Research? How much of the progress has
been because of income transfers, or other factors such as education,
child care, family breakdown and all the various points that we have
debated in Committee? Why did progress stall a couple of years ago? For
two years child poverty numbers went up and then stayed
static.
All of that
could be addressed in a report that could provide useful analysis and
guidance for future actions. We could have a better appreciation of the
significance of the recession—a point that has come up once or
twice during our proceedings. The evidence from the likes of the
Institute for Fiscal Studies is that the recession does not have a
straightforward negative impact on child poverty, although one might be
forgiven for thinking that it does, listening to some of the things
that Ministers have said—in Department for Work and Pensions
questions on 29 June in
fact. I
asked the Minister a question about child poverty targets and she
replied: “Everyone,
even the hon. Gentleman, must understand that in the current economic
circumstances meeting the 2010 target is a real
challenge.”—[Official Report, 29 June 2009; Vol.
495, c.
10.] We could
infer from that that the current economic circumstances—the
recession—have driven child poverty up, but we know that not to
be the case. Child poverty is a relative measure and, because median
incomes tend to be hit harder by recession than those who are on
benefits, by and large there is a small negative effect. There is an
impact on the public finances and, to be fair, in the course of the
evidence session the Financial Secretary made it clear that that was
the concern. It is worth bearing in mind that there is a choice that is
often followed. I refer the Committee to the evidence given by Mike
Brewer: “The
Government had a choice, particularly at the time of the fiscal
stimulus. They had a choice between where to spend the money and they
chose, for example, to keep the higher rate of personal allowance,
which they introduced under a personal, temporary measure, rather than
spend it on tax
credits.” I
mention that because the Government might have acted differently if
they had had to submit a report to Parliament in the near future
explaining the progress towards the 2010 target. Perhaps a bit of
hauling of the feet to the fire in the immediate future might change
policy decisions on the upcoming public borrowing
requirement.
Mr.
Stuart: Will my hon. Friend give
way?
Mr.
Gauke: Let me give a further quotation from Mike
Brewer: “The
Government could have spent
some” of
that
money “on
tax credits...That would have made a severe dent in child poverty,
and I might well be sitting here now telling you that the Government
were on track to hit their child poverty
target.”——[Official Report, Child
Poverty Public Bill Committee, 22 October 2009; c. 118,
Q234.] That
could have been done, and the Government might have had a different
approach to the 2010 target if there had been a
report.
Mr.
Stuart: Does my hon. Friend wonder, as I do, whether the
10p tax measure, which penalised so many low earners, would have been
brought in by the Government before the election that never was if
Ministers had known that they would have to produce a report showing
the impacts? My hon. Friend will be aware that there are still losers
from that 10p tax
fiasco.
Mr.
Gauke: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It would be
necessary to look closely at the data to see if the remaining losers
were families with
children.
Ms
Keeble: Will the hon. Gentleman give
way?
Mr.
Gauke: I was expecting the hon. Member for Northavon to
intervene but, failing him, I certainly give way to the hon.
Lady.
Ms
Keeble: The hon. Gentleman should look at what happened
with the 10p tax issue. I felt strongly about it, but only in relation
to women between the ages of 60 and 64, for whom there has never been
any compensation. If the hon. Gentleman looks closely at what happened,
families with children, for the most part, were big gainers. I have
looked up the figures for my constituency. There were very large
amounts of money a week, not just 10p on the tax. The hon. Gentleman is
quite wrong about the impact that that measure had on families with
children, albeit that it impacted unfairly on other groups,
particularly women.
5.15
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