Time to fight child poverty

programmes worth the most serious consideration.

The main benefit would be to bind all governments to announced targets. This would be real progress and an example of the kind of governmental selffettering which has been such a force for good.

We take it for granted now, for instance, that governments must reveal the state of their accounts regularly. We take it for granted that ministers’ spending is routinely made public. The public now expects this to continue and any government that scrapped them would face a backlash.

In other words, the proposal for a bipartisan commitment on child poverty is a truly important momentfor the country.

National has been both combative and coy about Labour’s invitation. But it would be wise to take up their offer at least in principle, with detailed argument left for the usual select committee process. Doing this would not only be good for the country’s children and for social justice. It would also be good for National.

The Opposition is understandably miffed that the Labour-led Government threw out its own public service targets, which it claims would be valuable in the fight against poverty. They might be right about that, and Labour would do well to engage with their concerns.

But National’s argument for measurable targets and deadlines also holds for measurable targets and deadlines in the fight against poverty. Why would National try to resist those?

Its bold decision in its last term to increase benefit levels for the first time in decades shows the brutal benefit-cutting party of the 1990s has genuinely changed.

National promised during the 2017 election campaign to reduce child poverty according to one measure, and there is no reason in principle why it should not join forces with the Government in the new campaign with its four different measures.

Britain’s 2010 poverty broke apart, partly over disagreements about how to measure poverty, but also because of the Conservatives’ brutal austerity policies.

National did not practise the politics of austerity during its nine-year rule, and disagreements would still be possible under the proposed new law. But Labour’s measures are defensible, including household income both before and after housing costs, and specific measures of material deprivation.

A programme of transparency and independent reporting of progress would be crucial in the war against poverty.