My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 34, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I recognise that, following recent announcements, noble Lords will be seeking to debate the wider issue of child poverty in the fullest way and I have no doubt that there will be further opportunities in the future. As the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions confirmed in the other place last Wednesday, the Government will be bringing forward legislation to remove the existing measures and targets in the Child Poverty Act, as well as the other duties and provisions. When this legislation is brought forward, there will of course be further opportunities to debate the many specific details. However, the legislation will at the same time introduce a statutory duty to report on measures of worklessness and educational attainment. We do not underestimate the importance of income and its impact on children’s life chances, but we are clear that the current low-income measures do not drive the right action to tackle the root causes of child poverty, which are what we really need to focus on. That is why we have set out our proposals for new measures.
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We have long talked about the importance of work as a way for families to stay out of poverty. The Government have a proud record on this and we want to do even more. The provisions in the Bill will enable parents to take up work or increase their hours at work so that they can support their families. We know that work is the best route out of poverty. Around three-quarters of children from low-income families move out of income poverty when a parent moves into work or from part-time to full-time work. Compared to 2010, there are 390,000 fewer children living in workless households, which is a record low. That is why this measure is important and why we are focusing on helping families increase their hours of work, if they so choose.
I hope that noble Lords will recognise that the debate today, and the focus of this Committee, is on the provisions in the Bill. With this in mind, I will respond to the amendment and not seek to address wider questions at this stage. During Committee, we debated
how this extended free childcare entitlement will impact on children from disadvantaged homes. The investment that the Government have made in extending the offer of 15 hours’ free early education to two year-olds from the 40% most disadvantaged homes and the early years pupil premium are extremely important. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is as proud as we are that these two programmes were implemented in the last Parliament.
As the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said, the Government were pleased that the Child Poverty Action Group welcomed the additional free childcare as,
“an extremely positive move overall”.
Ahead of Committee, the Government published their assessment of the impact of this legislation on child poverty. The assessment found that implementing this policy could result in fewer workless families, higher earnings from employment for those who increase their hours and a higher disposable income for those who already pay for additional hours of childcare to purchase other goods. I reassure noble Lords that the Government want to see this policy impact positively on the lives of all working families. We want the availability of more free childcare for three and four year-olds to reduce the childcare bill of hard-working families. We want flexible and affordable quality childcare to enable parents to increase their earnings to better support their families.
The effect of this amendment, as with a number of others debated during Committee, would be to require the Secretary of State to evaluate the impact of this entitlement in order to report on it annually. The Government understand the calls from noble Lords to increase our evidence and understanding of the impact of childcare and early education. As my noble friend Lord Nash and I referenced in the debate last week, the new longitudinal study of early education and development commissioned by the Department for Education is a significant commitment by the Government to evaluating the effectiveness of the current early education model in England and the impact of providing funded early years education—particularly, as the noble Baroness said, with regard to two year-olds from lower income families. I hope that noble Lords will be reassured that the intention of this amendment is understood and that the Government value the evidence base about the early years and the impact of significant investment such as this extension of free entitlement. On this basis, I therefore ask the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, to withdraw her amendment.