My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who spoke in support of the amendment. I am grateful to the Minister, who at least went into more detail. As he expected, I was not convinced by his arguments, because I still have not really heard a convincing explanation of why there should be no accountability for what is happening. He said that we must focus on the things that matter, but surely what is happening to, for instance, the lady referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, matters? My noble friend Lady Sherlock talked about those who work such long hours that they do not see their children. We know from research at Bath University that children care about that. It talked about children and lone mothers in particular: they are glad when their mother gets paid work, but it affects them. They hardly see their mother. That time squeeze on such families is important. These things matter as well.
I do not necessarily think that this is ideological, as the Minister said. At the beginning he said that it is not the level of poverty that matters, but what is likely to happen to the life chances of children—as if these were totally separate things. The whole point, as the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission and the driver analysis said, is that life chances are affected by income poverty. Therefore, we need to know what is happening to the life chances of children, regardless of the employment status of their parents. I will not go into the detail of the trends; it is pretty much what the Minister said in Committee. I do not think that that is the point; the point is that there should be government accountability about what is happening to those who, as the Minister likes to say, are “doing the right thing”—although I am not so sure it is always doing the right thing—and who are in paid work.
I am disappointed. What the Minister said at the end suggests, if we are focusing on what matters and we do not focus on the poverty of those whose parents are in paid work, that that therefore does not matter. That says volumes. I do not suppose that low-paid parents are sitting at home watching this debate—they are probably out there working—but if they read about it or hear about it, they would say, “Don’t we matter? Don’t the hours I am putting in for little pay matter? Don’t the Government want to report on what is happening to people like me? Doesn’t it matter?”. I think that it matters enormously. However, I will not push our luck and test the opinion of the House, so, regretfully, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.