Poverty Bill must rise above politics

A six-week consultation will now put some meat on the bones of this ambitious commitment, unveiled by Gordon Brown at last autumn's Labour party conference, before the child poverty Bill is passed in Parliament (see p2). The move will flush out the true extent of the Conservatives' commitment to ending child poverty. Any future government opposed to the goal will very publicly need to reverse the legislation.

In any case though, passing something in law doesn't mean it will happen. For instance, the law to end fuel poverty has been riddled with loopholes that relieve the government of any obligation. The child poverty Bill must be more robust. In order to ensure the legislation transcends party politics, it must be subject to an independent scrutiny body.

As the Child Poverty Coalition recommends, it should also require government to issue progress reports and strategy reports, poverty impact assessments of all Whitehall and local government policies and set dates to achieve milestones on the way. The Bill must also nail down the definition of child poverty, as 60 per cent of median household income, to prevent politicians from claiming success by fiddling with the definition.

Interestingly, practitioners in the children's and youth workforce don't identify with the term "child poverty". A study by the government's own child poverty unit found they deemed the terms, "deprivation" or "disadvantage" more appropriate. But combating child poverty underpins all efforts to tackle child protection, youth crime, health inequalities, educational attainment and general wellbeing.

Eradicating child poverty completely is unachieveable. Most campaigners accept that driving the level down to five per cent of children would be success. Since the recession is expected to trigger a rise in lone parents, low-income and workless families, we will be in for a bumpy ride.

And yet that is no excuse for this government to abandon the 2010 target to halve child poverty since 1999. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, child poverty costs Britain at least £25bn a year to remedy the consequences of deprivation. The 2010 target will cost £3bn to fix through the tax and benefits system. Given the size of the banks' bailout - and that in 2007 we spent £5.7bn alone on shoes - that has to be a price worth paying.