Lord Livermore (Lab)

The right reverend Prelate set out a number of issues that he agreed with, and obviously I am grateful for his agreement with those. He talked about child poverty and he knows that—as the Prime Minister described it—our free school meals policy is a down payment on the work that we want to do to tackle and end child poverty. I was lucky enough to be part of a previous Government—I worked for a previous Chancellor—who reduced child poverty by 1 million children, so there should be no doubt about my personal commitment to reducing child poverty. I had to sit by, as did many of my noble friends, and watch the previous Government increase child poverty by 700,000. That is not something that any of us wanted to see; so he should be reassured that we absolutely prioritise this issue. The right reverend Prelate asked about free school meals. The children of every family on universal credit will be eligible for those free school meals. He described the child poverty strategy as much delayed. I am not sure I would accept that. I think we have set out when it will come—alongside the Budget this autumn—and it will consider all the issues and representations that are put to it. There is quite a lot in this spending review to tackle child poverty. As I say, that is a down payment and I very much hope we will be able to do more.