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| Government loses major House of Lords vote to redefine child poverty | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The Government has suffered a major defeat in the House of Lords over changing the way it measures child poverty. | |
| Peers voted 290 to 198 to approved an amendment to the Welfare Reform bill which blocks Conservative plans to abolish income-related child poverty targets. | Peers voted 290 to 198 to approved an amendment to the Welfare Reform bill which blocks Conservative plans to abolish income-related child poverty targets. |
| This means the Government will have to continue publishing annual data on child poverty measured with reference to average household income. | |
| Addressing the House, the Rt Reverend Paul Butler said the income situation needed to be recorded so it could be assessed alongside other measures of deprivation. | |
| Currently, child poverty is measured in comparison to average household income but the government believes the foucs on income diverts attention away from the root causes of poverty. | |
| It proposes to measure the rate based on a child's "life chances" which will take into account such factors as the proportion of children living in workless households. | |
| The bill is designed to abolish the existing act 2010 Child Poverty Act brought in by the previous Labour government which focuses on income-related child poverty targets. | |
| The charity campaigning against the change, the Child Poverty Action Group, welcomed the Lords' intervention. | |
| Chief executive Alison Garnham said: "Today’s vote by the House of Lords shows how much of a mess the Government has got itself into on poverty. | |
| "It’s needed the House of Lords to act and insist that, yes, the Government should continue to report to parliament on what’s happening to child poverty and, yes, that when you talk about poverty and life chances, you cannot simply ignore income. The Lords is on the side of the experts and the public here. | |
| "MPs now have a chance to demonstrate their commitment to tackling child poverty by holding on to the Lords amendment when the Bill comes back to them." | |
| The Government's debate comes after a report from Parliament's social mobility and child poverty commission attacking the proposals was published last month. | |
| The committee - led by former Labour cabinet minister Alan Milburn - was in favour of introducing "life chances" measures but believed the income-related measure remained essential. | |
| Additional reporting by PA |