Chamber and committees

That was a useful answer in relation to the Government, but the nature of the work in this area is such that it involves other agencies. Local government is a strong partner in that work, but it faces huge challenges, not least on resource. Can the cabinet secretary say something about the Government’s work with local government on that agenda?

Good morning to the panel and to the minister.

Thinking about the current childcare offer and the plans that were announced in relation to expansion, to what extent does the Government expect the childcare policy to reduce child poverty in time to meet the 2030 targets that were set through the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017?

I am glad to hear the cabinet secretary’s answer; she knows how important modern studies is in teaching good citizenship and respectful debate. Young people and their teachers across Renfrewshire work extremely hard to achieve their results in the subject.

What would the cabinet secretary say to a colleague who was encouraging the denigration of young people’s exam results in order to attack a political opponent? Will she join me in condemning the actions of her colleagues in local Scottish National Party branches, council groups and even the Scottish Parliament who seem to believe that the life chances of pupils at Park Mains high school, which is an excellent school in my region, are fair game in desperate political attacks?

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is regarding levels of attainment in modern studies in the most recent Scottish Quality Authority exam results in Renfrewshire. (S6O-02518)

I thank Bob Doris for bringing the debate to the chamber. There are few issues as pressing and important as tackling child poverty, and it should be the focus of far more of our time in the chamber and far more of our collective energies in working on the solutions to tackle it and all its root causes and facets. The life chances of our young people are crucial to how we thrive as a society and as a world, and it is clear to me that we need a change of approach at UK level and Scottish level to lift more children out of poverty.

I am proud that the previous UK Labour Government lifted 2 million children and pensioners out of poverty, including 200,000 children in Scotland alone, through fundamental reform of the social contract, introducing the national minimum wage and tax credits and revitalising support for families with children across the UK.

The next Labour Government will focus on doing the same: growing our economy, spreading wealth to all parts of the country and fixing the economic carnage that has been unleashed by the Tories. It will deliver a new deal for working people by strengthening workers’ rights, ending zero-hours contracts, delivering a proper living wage and ensuring that everyone is paid enough to live on without having to rely solely on benefits to supplement poverty wages—

I would like to make some progress.

The next Labour Government will fundamentally reform the universal credit system and introduce a child poverty strategy that will ensure that driving down child poverty runs through every aspect and policy area of Government, delivering a proper safety net for those who need it. It will ensure that people can pay their bills, particularly their energy bill, and not fall into a debilitating cycle of debt. I will come on to speak about debt in more detail, including the crucial work that is done by organisations such as Aberlour Child Care Trust in that regard.

I give way to Kevin Stewart.

The minister has said that a future Labour Government would do nothing to lift children out of poverty. Would she agree with me that raising the national minimum wage to the level of the living wage, banning zero-hours contracts, ensuring rights for workers from day 1, increasing sick pay and carrying out a fundamental reform of universal credit and the entire UK benefits system would fundamentally lift children out of poverty? It would lift children out of poverty just as the previous Labour Government lifted a million children out of poverty—200,000 of whom lived in Scotland.

The member will have heard me refer to the fundamental reform of universal credit that is required. We need to fundamentally change the current policy, because it does not work. The social security system does not work and it needs to be changed. Forty per cent of claimants are in work, which is why we need a new deal for working people. We need better wages and a national minimum wage that is a real living wage that will lift people out of poverty. Crucially, we need to get people back into work—

I talk about fundamental reform of universal credit because that is what I believe in. However, unfunded spending commitments cannot be made, because working people will pay the price.

Let me remind Mr Doris of the Scottish National Party’s position on the abolition of the two-child cap. Shirley-Anne Somerville said—[Interruption.]

Shirley-Anne Somerville said:

“It’s not our policy to alleviate the two-child cap.”

Perhaps that is a straight answer for Mr Doris’s constituents.

I had more to say about debt. Aberlour Child Care Trust’s excellent briefing for the debate points to the vicious cycle of debt, which is pushing people into more and more poverty. We need to take action. All members need to take action to support our local authorities and national institutions to alleviate that debt and ensure that people can get out of poverty.

I will draw to a close and go back to where I started. Lifting children out of poverty must be a relentless focus. Tinkering at the edges will not do. We need to fundamentally change how we approach our economy, work and our social security system to ensure that those systems once again improve the life chances of all our people, as they have in the past.