Child Poverty
House of Lords · Lords Chamber · 18 Jun 2026 · 31 speeches · Official Report
Motion to Take Note
Moved by
That this House takes note of the Government’s actions to tackle child poverty.
My Lords, it is a real pleasure to introduce this debate on the first UK-wide child poverty strategy, and strategy for England, since 2010, during which time child poverty, particularly deep child poverty, has worsened. I am grateful to the noble Lords taking part, and I hope that the debate will provide an opportunity to highlight some of the strategy’s strengths and to suggest where it might go further in tackling child poverty effectively. One of the strategy’s great strengths has been the taskforce’s wide engagement with stakeholders, including, in particular, parents and children with experience of poverty. Four of those parents, who were involved in the Changing Realities participatory project, said in the foreword: “We have experienced genuine listening and collaboration, and it has been encouraging to feel that our lived experience can and should influence policy solutions”. There is a commitment to continuing this engagement as part of the strategy’s evaluation and development, which I will return to. Although the strategy document itself did not mention children’s rights, a subsequent child rights impact assessment, published alongside a child-friendly version of the strategy, emphasises: “From the outset, development of the strategy has been guided by a children’s rights approach”, and that this will continue by “involving children in monitoring its impact”, which is very welcome. Another very positive aspect of the strategy document is its language and tone. It...
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on securing this debate. It is very timely in recognising the ongoing challenges that families in this country face, including issues around inflation, the reduction in the number of jobs available and the increase in unemployment, as well as the need to tackle the strategic challenges around NEETs. While we are talking about children today, the increase in youth employment really worries me about the future of our country. I agree with the noble Baroness on one issue, and that is childcare. I lost this argument with other Ministers when I was in government, but we need to look very carefully to try to increase significantly the number of child carers-not necessarily nurseries-to help people get into and stay in work, and to expand the number of hours they have. It is all well and good having 38 weeks a year when the schools are sitting, but that does not help when someone still has that job in the summer or over Christmas. They are the sort of strategic challenges that we need to face. I am very proud of my three years at the DWP. Working with my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott, we did a lot of good to try to help people get out of poverty. One of the battles I had was about the definition of poverty. The British Social Attitudes survey is very clear that people do not agree that getting 60% of the median income automatically means that someone is poor-as the noble Baroness said, they prefer the concept of deeper poverty. Lots of...
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on securing the debate and thank her for her tireless work in addressing child poverty. Like many others, I welcomed the publication of the Government’s child poverty strategy and was delighted by the Government’s decision to abolish the two-child limit on universal credit. Like others, I felt that the Government missed the opportunity to deliver some quick wins-measures that would not require legislation yet would make a tangible difference to children’s lives. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, already mentioned a number of these measures, but I wish to focus on just one: auto-enrolment for free school meals. On the face of it, it is a very modest proposal, yet it would have profound positive consequences for some of the disadvantaged children in the country. Around 250,000 children in England who are eligible for free school meals are not enrolled to receive it. That is approximately one in 10 of all those who should be benefiting from this scheme; in the north-east, it is one in five. The entitlement exists, but it is not making its full potential impact. There is a substantial body of evidence, including a major cost-benefit analysis conducted by PwC for impacts on urban health, which demonstrated that free school meals improve concentration in the classroom, boost attendance, raise attainment and improve long-term health outcomes. Yet, some of the children most in need of this benefit are missing out. This is...
My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Lister for securing this vital debate. The Government’s strategy on child poverty should inspire the nation. It has mobilised us all in common cause around what is clearly the fight of our lives: to finally break the link between economic background and life chances, and in so doing, to lift our children out of the bleak, desperate world of crushing poverty, thereby giving them faith in the future. The causes of 21st-century child poverty have been well documented. There has been much focus, and rightly so, on financial inputs and outputs that are, respectively, plummeting income and rising costs. However, amid the flurry of these high-impact interventions and initiatives that emerge from the child poverty strategy, there remains one of the most potent levers of all at our disposal to pull as vigorously as we can, and urgently so, and that is the role of inspired schools and inspiring teachers. There is a simple formula for us to consider in this debate. Of all the levers at our disposal, education remains the single most effective way to genuinely attack that toxic link between background and success, and we know that, at the heart of that, are the heroes and heroines of the front line: our teachers. We know that it is teachers who are the most important in-school factor in improving outcomes for children, especially our poorest children. In that regard, we would do well to reflect on a report published yesterday by Teach...
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for bringing forward this important debate. Few issues test the conscience more directly than child poverty. Across the UK today, around 4.5 million children are growing up in poverty. In Wales, around 31% of children are living in relative poverty and 26% of children in working households are living in poverty. These are not just statistics; they represent children going without essentials, families under constant pressure, and opportunities limited before life has properly begun. I speak about this not only as a Member of this House and a campaigner but from personal experience. I grew up in poverty on a council estate in Wales, and during that time I was also a young carer. I know what it means to take on complex responsibility early, to balance care with education and to live with the quiet strain that so often accompanies hardship at home. That experience simply does not pass. It shapes your outlook, your opportunities and your sense of what lies ahead. Child poverty is not inevitable; it is a result of political choices, and it can be changed by political choices, as outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. That is why I want to focus on the approach being taken by the new Plaid Cymru-led Welsh Government, who have made a clear and deliberate decision to prioritise tackling child poverty. That commitment will soon be reflected in the draft Budget to be laid next week, because, if we are serious about...
Baroness Paul of Shepherd's Bush
I thank my noble friend Lady Lister for securing this debate. She talked about a “strong start” and my comments come in that context. This is an important debate that speaks to what it means to be Labour: a determination to lift the most vulnerable children in the most difficult circumstances and to give all children, especially the most disadvantaged, the best possible start in life. The child poverty strategy is a strong and serious piece of work. It recognises the complexity of the challenges facing families and the need for a cross-governmental response, and I welcome its intent. If I may, however, I shall focus on an emerging dimension of child poverty that we cannot afford to overlook: the differing outcomes for boys and girls, even when they experience the same early disadvantage. I think the evidence is becoming clear that child poverty is not a uniform experience. It is shaped not only by low income, poor housing and food insecurity, but by gender, where different developmental patterns, expectations and responses to disadvantage begin to drive very different outcomes. When we look closely, we see that while poverty harms all children, boys are often more likely to experience its most damaging and long-term consequences. Education provides the clearest examples. Boys from low-income households arrive at school less ready to learn, fall behind early and leave with fewer and lower qualifications than girls facing the same disadvantages. They are also twice as likely...
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Lister for securing this important debate; she has spent decades making poverty visible when others preferred not to look. I declare my interest as executive director of Impact on Urban Health, a health equity funder. We fund organisations that work with children, such as Changing Realities, the Child Poverty Action Group and Save the Children. However, I am speaking today in a personal capacity. Tackling child poverty and addressing its effects has been at the root of so much of my work over the last two decades. For much of that time, it has felt like trying to stop the tide going out. In my work, I have seen the poor-quality temporary accommodation that families get stuck in, to great expense for local authorities. I have seen the poverty that schools try their best to paper over, because the levels of need are such a barrier to learning. I have heard stories of how families have unexpectedly found themselves underemployed and on universal credit. The numbers in this strategy bear that out. A child eligible for free school meals is already five months behind by the time they start school. One in four children from the poorest families gets five good GCSEs-the figure is three in four for children from the richest families. In that context, I welcome this strategy. It is cross-government in design, it was built with families, and it has great policy content. Removing the two-child limit, as other noble Lords have said, is the most...
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Babudu, and I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Lister for securing this very important debate. I want to focus my remarks on what I know best: health. Child poverty is not simply a social issue; it is a public health crisis. Unless we address it, we will continue to pay the price for decades to come in poorer health, greater inequality and rising demands on our NHS. As we have already heard, 31% of children in the UK are living in relative poverty after housing costs. In a classroom of 30 children, that is 10 children whose future health is already being shaped not by their talents, aspirations or potential but by the circumstances into which they were born. Indeed, the impact of poverty on health begins even before birth. As a doctor, I find the evidence compelling. We know that the intrauterine environment plays a profound role in determining future health. The pioneering work of Professor David Barker of Southampton demonstrated that poor nutrition and deprivation during pregnancy can programme the developing foetus in ways that increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and hypertension in adult life. In other words, poverty leaves a biological imprint before a child has even taken their first breath. In fact, the first chapter of a child’s health story is written before conception, through the physical and metabolic health of parents. Children born into poverty are more likely to be born with...
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the clearly heartfelt remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Nargund. Child poverty is a scourge on society, and that it should be at such a high level in this country is truly appalling. The Government’s latest strategy to alleviate it is a positive move and shows some welcome joined-up thinking, but, with the exception of the two-child benefit cap being lifted, any real impact will be felt only over time and, however good the intentions, it is implementation that counts-and on that there must be some misgivings. Currently, all good intentions have to be set in the realistic context that there is a dire shortage of cash, so it is essential that those seeking to address this issue should look beyond government resources to the local community. Take, for instance, the fact that more than one-third of children now start out in the education system unequipped to cope with the basics that are rightly expected. The strong risk is that this disadvantage will dog them throughout their lives. There can be many reasons why a four year-old is still in nappies and barely able to speak, sometimes unaware even of what their own name is, but a lack of cash cannot be the sole explanation. Inadequate parenting may be due to a lack of support and guidance, reliance by harassed parents on screen time as a substitute carer, or sheer despair at having to cope with myriad problems, from poor housing to ill health. The best family hubs, as they become...
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft. I am pleased to be able to take part in this debate. I thank my noble friend Lady Lister for securing it and for her comprehensive introduction. One could say that it left very little else to be said. My noble friend has campaigned on these issues for decades in this House, as an academic and through her work at the Child Poverty Action Group. She is dedicated and focused and has a formidable grasp of this complex area. I pay tribute to her for her life’s work. I know she felt as emotional as I did when, in April this year, the announcement was made ending the two-child benefit limit. I also thank my noble friend Lady Sherlock for all she has done, and for her dedication as a member of the Front Bench. With all the competing demands faced by government, I cannot think of a safer pair of hands. When I was introduced to this House 16 years ago, my maiden speech was on the subject of poverty, so it felt right to take part in this timely debate. The late noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, was one of my sponsors. I worked with him on welfare and local government topics month in and month out. He was a modest man with huge ability, and I felt it right to mention him today. When I was a member of the Low Pay Commission in 1998, we made the first recommendation for a statutory national minimum wage. The pressure was enormous, remember? A million jobs were going to be lost. It taught me two things about...
My Lords, I am grateful to all the organisations that provided briefings on this crucial subject. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Lister on securing this debate and pay tribute to her for the considerable and tireless work she has done in this area over, frankly, years. The impacts of child and family poverty are many. Tackling it is the morally and politically right thing to do for children and their families now and in the future, as well as for our public services and the wider economy. Why is that? Poverty not only blights the lives of children; it can determine their future in a wholly negative way. They do less well at school, they are likely to have much poorer health-as we have heard in detail-and, of course, they often die at a younger age than their better-off peers. Frankly, that is a disgrace in what is, after all, still a rich country. On education, we know that the figure of 4.5 million children is the equivalent of something like eight to 10 in every class of 30, although child poverty is not equally in evidence in all schools or, indeed, in all areas nationally. Shamefully, as I think we have already heard, seven in 10 children who live in poverty come from a family where at least one person is working-I am sure we will hear more of that later. We know that, even in their early years, children who live in poverty are over 4.5 months behind their better-off peers, and this grows to approaching two years by the time they reach GCSEs, as recorded by the...
The noble Baroness is making an interesting point, but of course the pupil premium is a source of funding. I wonder whether, based on what she has just been saying, that schools should think more about taking an element of the pupil premium, so that those young children are not excluded.
I thank the noble Baroness for the intervention. I am sure that the pupil premium is being used as best as it possibly can be in every school. Often schools are having to top up their pupil premium because, frankly, there is not enough money in it, but I welcome the intervention. Many of us applaud the ambition to reduce child poverty and clearly will do as much as we possibly can to monitor what I hope will be the Government’s success in this.
I too join others in congratulating my noble friend Lady Lister on securing this debate. Like others, I express my great gratitude to her for the lifetime of campaigning that she has undertaken on this front and the great successes that she has seen delivered latterly. I thank the Government and, in particular, our Minister for her commitment and the great work that she has done. I say that in the knowledge that there are many other things she would like to do and is still not able to do even in government. The Government have made some important steps forward, but we need more. I will not repeat what others have said about the changes that have been implemented. I was particularly interested in the quality of school meals, and the need to extend those over a wider front, as well as the breakfast clubs. The noble Baroness, Lady Nargund, made a very powerful speech indeed, particularly from a health angle. I sometimes wonder whether our definition of poverty is somewhat narrow, and this debate has ranged over a wider front. I too would like to say something more about children’s health and the worrying developments taking place with mental health. We really ought to broaden this debate to think about spiritual poverty as well as material poverty, because this poverty strategy is based primarily on the material rather than veering towards the spiritual. I feel-I guess, I sense-that some of the problems we are facing will take us into new areas. We need, if not new responses,...
The Lord Bishop of Peterborough
My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Baroness for securing this important debate. At a time when the cost of living continues to rise and so many families struggle to meet their most basic needs, children often feel these burdens most strongly. Along with voluntary groups and other faith groups, many churches and Church schools are already working to support children most impacted by this crisis. Legislative change is needed but, like other noble Lords, I highlight and recognise the vital role that voluntary groups play in bringing people together, promoting hope and engaging in acts of care-all means of supporting children in poverty. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, food is now the most common essential that low-income households are going without. Children living in poverty report exclusion from social activities and feel embarrassed to invite schoolmates to their home. Without a secure roof over their head or a hot meal on their dinner table, daily life becomes a struggle for survival, one that children are least equipped of all to bear. Child poverty, then, is not just an issue of economics but a crisis of human dignity and a moral challenge to the kind of society we wish to build. Social stigma around experiences of poverty can cut whole families off from their support networks, yet it is these very community institutions which have such great potential to help lift families out of poverty and to provide a sense of belonging. I draw attention to one...
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Lister for bringing this debate to your Lordships’ House. I begin by congratulating the Government on taking the historic decision to remove the two-child benefit limit. This is a bold and compassionate measure that will lift almost 500,000 children out of poverty. It is a policy for which many have argued for many years, but it took a Labour Government to deliver it. It demonstrates that poverty is not inevitable; it is a result of a political choice, and it can be reduced through political action. It should rightly be recognised as a significant step forward in the Government’s child poverty strategy. However, while we celebrate this progress, we must also confront the uncomfortable reality that pockets of child poverty remain in some of our communities. Ethnic minority children continue to face disproportionately high levels of poverty. Recent figures show that around 63% of Bangladeshi children and 52% of Pakistani children are growing up below the poverty line, compared with much lower rates among other children. Children from these communities are also more likely to experience persistent and severe poverty, limiting their opportunity and affecting their health, educational attainment and life chances. These figures should concern us all. They represent not just statistics but children whose talent and aspiration are being constrained by circumstances beyond their control. A truly successful child poverty strategy must address...
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend for securing this debate and for her eloquent opening which, together with the contributions of other noble friends, identifies the appalling and, indeed, rising levels of child poverty in this, one of the richest countries in the world. No one could disagree with the measures proposed in the government strategy paper and those raised during this debate. However, I will focus on another aspect of the problem, which my noble friend Lady Donaghy has touched on: the problem of low pay. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s UK Poverty 2026 report points out that 1.2 million children in poverty live in families with no adults in work. That is tragic, but not perhaps surprising among the grisly statistics on poverty. However, 1.7 million children in poverty live in families where at least one adult is in work. Worse still, 1.6 million children live in poverty in families where every adult in the family is in work. This shows that, unemployment apart, workers do not earn enough to banish poverty. In this country, wages are, quite simply, too low. It must be remembered that, of our population of 67 million, over half-34 million-are in work, yet they do not earn enough to generate the demand that would grow the economy. The latest ONS figures show that, for full-time workers, median earnings are £39,000 per annum gross and £31,700 net. This equates to a weekly take-home of about £610 per week. When part-timers are taken into account, the gross...
My Lords, the debate on this vitally important topic is so far almost indistinguishable from a debate held in this Chamber in April 2024. We have had a depressing litany of figures showing how children living in poverty suffer throughout their lives from disadvantage. In effect, we continue to raise the next generation which may have less hope for the future than perhaps a couple of years ago. Today, the number of children suffering poverty is above 4 million, as we have heard-although there is a prediction that current mechanisms could reduce that figure by 500,000 by 2030. Research by the Poverty Strategy Commission suggests that £36 billion-a huge sum, but not that huge in the context of reducing poverty-efficiently invested in mechanisms to reduce child poverty could actually eliminate it altogether. Despite the welcome lifting of the two-child benefit cap, the expansion of free school meals and investment in family hubs, I fear there are cuts to come. Current national concern about defence expenditure is likely to further stymie any mechanisms to relieve poverty conditions. This is a genuine dilemma that the Government have to face-daily. What are the priorities, where is the money to come from, and, I would add, how can improvements in the allocation of budgets to the various departments be implemented? It is the latter issue that I feel is the most productive avenue at present. It is widely acknowledged by all political parties and commentators that the Government...
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Lister for securing this valuable debate. I welcome the Government’s child poverty strategy, breakfast clubs, free school meals for all children in households on universal credit and the abolition of the two-child benefit cap. However, such help is not permanent. We all remember that the party opposite opposed lifting the cap and the rise in the minimum wage, which would condemn millions more to poverty. In a functioning democracy, no child should be condemned to live in poverty. The official total is that 13.4 million people, including 4 million children, live in poverty. Some 25.3 million people, including 7.7 million children, live below the minimum income standard. Too many are denied good food, housing and healthcare, and suffer from anxiety and insecurity from an early age. As a result, many do not attain their full educational, physical and mental-health development, or their employment and earnings potential. They are more likely to need support from health, welfare and public services throughout their life. Child poverty, over the life of the people involved, results in a loss of economic output of around £40 billion a year. A recent study published in the Nature Human Behaviour journal shows that the effects of poverty alter human biology and accelerate ageing from a very young age. It also noted that adults who endured childhood economic deprivation continue to age at a significantly accelerated biological pace later in life,...
My Lords, I add my name to the list of those commending my noble friend Lady Lister on bringing this debate? I also welcome the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, because the nature of the issue of child poverty is such that we should be striving for cross-party consensus on it. It is in our national interest. I have said before in a debate in this House that a Labour Government are about nothing if they are not about tackling child poverty. So it is welcome to be able to reflect again on what the Government have achieved so far and to think about what else needs to be done. It is important to acknowledge, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, mentioned at the outset, that, for the first time since 2010, we have a child poverty strategy, which has at its heart the three pillars of boosting family incomes, driving down the cost of essentials and increasing local support. While it does not solve all problems, I was pleased to support the ending of the two-child benefit cap, which came into effect in April. It is a singularly significant measure, which will help us reach that target of lifting over 500,000 children out of poverty. In fact, there is an impressive list of measures, from raising the national minimum wage to the introduction of school breakfast clubs and extending free school meals, which will all play a part in the mission of reducing the inequalities caused by poverty. I want to mention the Milburn review on young people and work, as the...
Noble Lords
Hear, hear!
Sorry, I was not expecting that cheer. We have spoken about it over the past two years, and we have seen some modest growth, but we have to be honest that it is not enough. We must show renewed urgency in demonstrating that the UK is open for business and is the genuine incubator for growth. If we can do that, we can be confident that this Labour Government are the Government who will end the scourge of child poverty, perhaps for a generation and beyond.
My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on securing this debate. I am a long-standing fan of the noble Baroness. I worked with her quite a lot when I was a Member of the other place. I have huge admiration for her fearless and courageous advocacy on behalf of, often, children who are otherwise forgotten. I have collaborated with her on many, many issues over many, many years. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to respond to this debate today on behalf of the Lib Dem Benches, and to have an opportunity to debate with the Minister, who, I recognise, has very deep knowledge and commitment in this area. This is an issue that I feel very passionately about. It is the reason why I made my maiden speech on the issue of child poverty just a few months ago. There are a number of us here who have, in government, attempted to tackle child poverty. The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, outed herself in her early remarks, and I know she mentioned the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott. When I made my maiden speech, I spoke about the challenges of wrangling a child-poverty strategy across government as being a cross between cat wrangling and giving birth, and requiring an equally miraculous level of commitment to actually bring that to fruition. The range of contributions today-highly knowledgeable contributions covering such a wide variety of topics-has brought that to the fore. We have heard many noble Lords speak about the moral imperative to tackle this...
My Lords, I, also, thank the noble Lady Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for this important debate today. I think we all agree that eliminating child poverty is an important aim. I went into education 25 years ago because I wanted to take forward the education approaches that are most effective with the most disadvantaged children, so I know how much work already goes on in all stages of education to support children in poverty. It was good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Kestenbaum, recognize this. I have studied the Government’s child poverty strategy and its publications on deep material poverty. The first thing I notice is how hard it is to measure child poverty. Much effort has gone into the new measure. It gets closer than the relative measure to children’s actual experience. Do they have three meals a day, fresh fruit and vegetables, somewhere to do homework, games, toys, and outdoor equipment? Do they live in decent and warm housing? Can they get around on public transport? Can their families cope with an unexpected bill? First, the measure suggests that there are just over 2 million children in deep material poverty. That is, of course, a concerning figure, but, startlingly, it correlates poorly with the Government’s preferred poverty measure of having less than 60% of median household income after housing costs. More than 70% of children in families below the 60% line are not in deep material poverty and, conversely, more than 40% of the children in deep material...
My Lords, let me add my words of appreciation to my noble friend Lady Lister, who must at this point be blushing from the compliments showered upon her, but they are very well deserved. I am thrilled that she got this debate and introduced it so well. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken and for the great encouragement from around the Chamber, especially from my new encourager on the Lib Dem Front Bench, the noble Baroness, Lady Teather, whom I welcome to the Front Bench. I also welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, to her role on the Front Bench, and I look forward to taking issue with her later. As we have heard, there are 4 million children in poverty in the UK. That is 700,000 more than there were in 2010. Almost 2 million children are in deep material poverty-a term I will come back to-lacking even the most basic essentials like a warm home or healthy food. We know that growing up in poverty has a devastating impact on children and their prospects. It affects their attainment at school, their future earnings, and their mental and physical health. They are more likely to grow up to become NEETs. Right now, we have more than 1 million young people not in education, employment or training. That is what happens when funding for services is cut, when wages flatline, and when people are trapped in the system. As my noble friend Lord Kestenbaum said, this is indeed the fight of our lives. We have to break this link between a child’s background and their future...
My Lords, I do not know where to start. It has been a fantastic debate, and I thank all noble Lords. I thank my noble friend, and I echo the very positive things that have been said about her. I cannot do justice to everything that has been said, but I am grateful for the passion, commitment and knowledge that people have brought to the debate. As I say, I cannot do justice to it all, but the noble Baroness, Lady Teather, who I think of as my noble friend, has done a very good job of summarising some of what has been said, as has my noble friend the Minister. I echo what my noble friend the Minister said about the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. I appreciate the fact that she has made the time to attend and contribute, although she will not expect me to agree with much of what she said. On the question of what happened during Covid, I take her point. It had something to do with the extra £20 that was paid on universal credit. From the evidence given to the Covid inquiry, I gather that the noble Baroness herself said that she pushed for an increase in universal credit. I welcome that; it was needed. I very much welcome what the noble Baroness said about debt advice services. She spoke about something that I should have mentioned: the importance of advice services more generally. We think of groups such as the Trussell Trust as providing food banks, but a lot of their work is providing advice. I thank the noble Baroness for that contribution. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop...
Motion agreed.
House adjourned at 4.55 pm.