---

Child Poverty

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, East (Kerry McCarthy) on securing the debate. The commitment to eradicate child poverty by 2020, which was first set out by Tony Blair in 1999, has animated much of what the Government have done since. I vividly recall the commitment to that goal underlined by the then Chancellor when I was first appointed a Treasury Minister in the summer of 1999, and that commitment continues to be at the heart of what the Government are doing. My hon. Friend asked how that policy is being led in the Government. The public sector agreement, which is the key target, is led by the Treasury. We also set up a child poverty unit, which is jointly responsible to the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Treasury. The Cabinet Committee is chaired by the Chancellor. The Department for Communities and Local Government is represented at a senior level on the officials' child poverty board, and officials in that Department work closely with the child poverty unit. I think that that is the right way to handle such things. The unit does a great deal of good work, and it needs to work with DCLG and other Departments across the Government because this drive is so central to so much of what we are doing. I welcome the consistent and thoughtful support for the target that my hon. Friend shows in much of her parliamentary work.