I welcome the chance to sort out the problems of poverty in an hour and a half. I welcome the idea that, in such a short amount of time, we can sort out the problem that a third of all our children are in or around poverty—that is 4 million children in the United Kingdom.

I alert people to my belief that, in the seven or eight years I have been in the House of Lords, I have never come to a debate or discussion where the root causes of things are dealt with. I believe strongly that one of the main problems we have is that Governments, Oppositions and people who have worked for many years in and around poverty are always dealing with the effects of poverty; they do not deal with the root causes of poverty. So when I proposed this small debate, I was actually trying to be revolutionary. I was trying to move the House of Lords—and, I hope, the House of Commons—towards the idea that instead of continuously dealing with the effects of poverty, we move the argument towards the root causes of poverty.

Throughout the world—it is not just the United Kingdom—in the region of about 80% of all money spent on social intervention is spent on dealing with the emergency and problems of coping with poverty. There is very little money spent on prevention or cure—the two opposites. Since the time I came into the House, I have been like a scratched record; I have gone on, again and again, asking when we are going to spend our time on eradicating poverty rather than ameliorating it and trying to accommodate it. That has been my real argument.

I think that His Majesty’s Government and His Majesty’s Opposition, and the previous Governments and Oppositions, have always dealt with the terrible reality poverty throws up. Tonight, I want to be a revolutionary and ask why we do not all look at something quite real. Why is it that, for all our efforts over decades—my decades go back to the end of the Second World War—we have always tried to deal with the obnoxiousness that is thrown up by poverty but we have never done a scientific analysis of the root causes of poverty? We have never had a Government or an Opposition, or an argument within our universities and charities, or among those who get involved in the struggles of the poorest among us, ask when we are going to do something about eradicating poverty.

I am sorry if I sound a bit Joan of Arc. I came into the House of Lords with one strict instruction from the people who encouraged me to come here, which was to help to dismantle and get rid of poverty, not to shift the deckchairs on the Atlantic. My instruction was not to make the poor more comfortable but to actually get rid of the concept of poor people.

I come from poverty, and maybe that is what drives me on. I come from people who came from poverty, who came from poverty and who came from poverty. The interesting thing is that when I grew up, I realised that they were surrounded by poverty; they could not get away from it. The mind-forged manacles that go with poverty meant that they perpetuated it. I have done my best within the lives of my own children to get rid of poverty in their futures, but the larger part of my family is still perpetuating poverty. Why? Because the root causes of poverty were never dealt with in the course of their lives.

To me, the big problem with poverty is the inheritance of poverty. In the United Kingdom, about 4 million children—a third of our children—are in poverty. It is interesting that a third of our children are in and around the problems of poverty, and in spite of all our efforts they remain so. What are we, the Church, the charities or the political parties going to do about it? Will they wake up one day and say, “Actually, we’re getting no nearer”? We know that in the last year, 100,000 more children have arrived in poverty.

We need an enormous mind shift, but I do not see it happening. I do not see anybody building the intellectual appliances or the university courses to find out why we are always trying to address the problems of poverty as if a bit more to the poor will actually change anything.

I came into the House of Lords and was astonished at the number of people who wanted me to get involved in agitating to give poor people more. I was determined, however much it would damage my reputation, not to do that. If the only thing you inherit is poverty, how do we break that situation so that you do not inherit it?

Can I just check: if we have more time, does this mean I can speak for another five minutes?