My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 4, which is supported by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and the noble Baronesses, Lady Stroud and Lady D’Souza, to whom I am very grateful, even though they could not all be in their places. I also give my support to Amendment 7 in particular. I am also grateful to Action For Children, and Paul Wright of Children’s Alliance, for their support.
The amendment would add a child poverty mission to the existing list of levelling-up missions, but it does so in a very different way to that put forward in Committee. I will explain that in a moment but first, I will give a very brief recap of the case. The latest official figures show that over 4 million—nearly a third—of all children are living in poverty. There is an even higher proportion among some minority ethnic communities and a growing problem of deep poverty, as demonstrated by the Social Metrics Commission, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud.
While poverty rates vary regionally, Tower Hamlets stands out as the local authority with the highest rate—nearly 50%, according to my colleagues in the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University. They used government data, which also show that children are more likely than the overall population to be in low-income households, so it is perhaps not surprising that the Trussell Trust has found that nearly half of all households experiencing hunger include children —a significantly disproportionate number. This is among the latest in a flood of reports I have received, since we debated the issue in Committee, documenting the hardship experienced by children in low-income families.
As I pointed out in Committee, both the Levelling-Up Secretary and the former Prime Minister who introduced the levelling-up strategy have acknowledged that it has to address poverty, in particular child poverty. That child poverty was not mentioned in the White Paper was, according to Mr Johnson, an accident, but the accident has not been rectified. Indeed, the opportunity to do so in Committee was rejected, despite strong support for a child poverty mission throughout the House. Moreover, it was disappointing that the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, that poverty might be written into the existing missions was simply ignored. Mission 2, on opportunities, would, I suggest, be the obvious place to do so.
The Minister’s rejection of the previous amendment in Committee appeared to be based on three propositions. The first was that such a strategy was unnecessary in light of the usual list of what the Government are already doing, together with an example of local authority action to support child poverty reduction at local level. Listing various initiatives does not constitute a strategy. While the anti-poverty strategies pursued by some local authorities are indeed inspiring, it was clear from a recent event organised by Greater Manchester Poverty Action that, despite the good work they are doing, what local authorities are able to achieve is hampered by the lack of a national anti-poverty strategy.
Secondly, on the much-repeated mantra that paid work is the best route out of poverty, it is certainly an important route, but for all too many it represents a cul-de-sac if it simply means in-work poverty. It is not an argument against a wider interdepartmental strategy.
Thirdly, there is the Government’s aversion to income-based targets. I do not accept the Minister’s argument, nor do most academics or charities working in the area, but I shall spare noble Lords a debate on this. Instead, in a spirit of compromise, I have redrafted the amendment to address her concerns so that it now refers to
“poverty in all its dimensions”.
This phrase is taken from the UN sustainable development goal 1.2, which commits all signatories to work to
“reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions”
by 2030.
Noble Lords who are not familiar with the sustainable development goals might think that this is an odd commitment to include in domestic policy but, as was made clear in a 2019 Written Statement from the Department for International Development, these goals apply to all people in all countries, including here in the UK. The amendment is in fact much less prescriptive than the goal itself but, given that the UK Government are committed to meeting the sustainable development goals and the then Secretary of State acknowledged that
“there is more work to do if we are to meet the ambitious targets by 2030”,
I hope the Government accept that this amendment would help them to do so. They might not like targets, but I am afraid that they are committed to the SDG target.
In Committee, the Minister accepted that child poverty is an issue that needs to be acted on. I am grateful to her for meeting me and the right reverend Prelate last week to propose a welcome, albeit small, concession by way of introducing child poverty statistics into the levelling-up metrics, which I shall leave her to spell out. But again, that alone does not constitute a stratagem. The Westminster Government remain the only Government in the UK without any kind of child poverty strategy, despite the 2021 recommendation for such a strategy from the Select Committee on Work and Pensions.
In conclusion, I would like to quote from a short film shown recently in Westminster by the Food Foundation, focused on Melissa, a mother from Solihull who is struggling to make ends meet. Speaking of families in poverty generally, and of politicians, she said:
“They”—
the politicians
“know we’re here, but they don’t see us”.
The inclusion of a child poverty mission in the levelling-up strategy would be a tangible way for the Government to say, “We do see you and we are serious when we say we are committed to eradicating child poverty”. I beg to move.