Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)

My Lords, I also support Amendment 107, moved by our friend, the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and will follow the powerful speeches by the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Bennett. The amendment is timely. It supports our children, particularly those most in need. As we heard, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s analysis on child poverty in Britain has said that 4.5 million children are living in poverty—a figure that continues to climb, even after the most recent policy changes. These are not abstract numbers; they are the lived reality of millions of families who are denied the security and opportunity that every child deserves. The amendment goes beyond rhetoric: it would require the Government to set binding targets, with clear timescales, and to account publicly for each step taken towards meeting them. Doing so would emulate principles behind other statutory frameworks. The most obvious is the Climate Change Act, through which parliamentary accountability has driven sustained action and cross-government focus. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, talked about eight separate departments having some sort of responsibility for child poverty. That rigour should be applied to the fight against child poverty. Peer-reviewed evidence makes it clear why this matters. International literature also shows that poverty has causal, long-term impacts on children’s health, educational attainment and future incomes. Children in low-income families are more likely to suffer poor health, lower school attainment and diminished life opportunities than their better-off peers. Moreover, robust reviews find that increased family income improves children’s educational and health outcomes, including school performance and future prospects. I am not just reviewing the literature: I speak before noble Lords with my own lived experience as someone who was on free school meals, who got subsidised school clothing and who could not afford to go to college simply because we were poor. I had to go and work on a YTS training scheme in 1988 for £27.50 per week, working 40 hours a week unloading lorries. This is my lived experience that I bring before noble Lords today. The evidence also reminds us that policy choices matter profoundly for children’s life chances, and systematic measurement and accountability mechanisms are essential to gauge impact. The Government’s recently published child poverty strategy, which was mentioned earlier, forecasts that the current suite of measures could lift an estimated 550,000 children out of relative poverty. We should all aim for that, but without legally enforceable targets, there is no guarantee that those outcomes will be delivered and sustained across future Administrations. Targets give shape to ambition; they transform good intentions into measurable progress. We should also heed lessons from within the UK. Scotland was mentioned earlier. Scottish poverty targets might not be perfect, but they have a guided, sustained policy focus, which has shown that, when outcomes are measured and monitored, progress is more achievable. This amendment is a practical tool to ensure that Ministers cannot evade responsibility for promises they have made. It is a mechanism that will help ensure that every policy aimed at education, well-being, housing and family support is tested against the yardstick of whether it moves us closer to reducing child poverty. I therefore urge noble Lords from all sides of the House to support the amendment and help ensure that the Government are held accountable to the children of our great nation.