My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 24, 26 and 46, to which I have added my name along with those of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and my noble friend Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope. Amendment 24 clarifies what we mean by children in low-income households where one or both parents are in work. Amendment 26 builds on Amendment 24 and inserts “low income” and “in work” for further clarity.
The Bill repeals the Child Poverty Act 2010 and the requirement for the Secretary of State to develop a strategy for tackling child poverty. That is really worrying, because poverty is a cost that the UK cannot afford. It wastes people’s potential, drains public finances and
hampers economic growth. The new definition risks underestimating the rise in in-work poverty, downplaying income and obscuring families’ ability to pay for decent housing. Moreover, as we all know and heard again in the first Committee sitting, such children are more likely to suffer from poor health, do worse at school, be jobless in future and die earlier.
I agree with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which believes that income measures should better account for household costs by including analysis of income after essential costs such as childcare and housing costs are removed—particularly given how high housing costs are in cities such as London. I agree that that would support a much more dynamic picture of the living standards of UK households. Will the Minister consider bringing forward government amendments to develop and publish a life chances strategy that retains some income-related measures in the basket of measures we already have—given, in particular, that the Government intend to retain the HBAI reporting measures? I cannot see why those could not be added, because they are going to be collated anyway, but it would be good to have them on the face of the Bill.