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Lord Bird (CB)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 19 June 2025

Debate

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Contribution

I have never heard of the concept of deep poverty. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said that poverty is different if you are in Weston-super-Mare or in Bristol. I was privileged to be banged up with people from the countryside, from the little cities and the big cities. I met all of them. We had a uniformity of thinking, which was so self-destructive. There is uniformity. There is a philosophy of poverty. Until we break through that, we are not going anywhere. The idea of relative poverty is ridiculous. Unfortunately, we have increasing poverty because we have not attacked the inheritance of poverty. So many people break out of poverty because the parents choose not to simulate or duplicate what has happened before. My wife’s family come from poverty in India. They said goodbye to poverty. All the children have gone through college, done the levels and been to university. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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