Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Meeting date: Thursday, March 24, 2022

Official Report 1134KB pdf

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Child Poverty

The next item of business is a Scottish Government debate on “Best Start, Bright Futures: tackling child poverty delivery plan 2022-26”. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak button now.

15:47  

As the cabinet secretary said in her statement, the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 was passed unanimously by Parliament, setting a target to substantially reduce rates of child poverty in Scotland. It would be fair to say that we have not seen the progress that was expected or hoped for to deliver the reductions in child poverty that we all wanted to see. Indeed, since the bill was passed, many organisations have pointed to greater challenges that we face as a country. Nonetheless, eliminating child poverty must be a priority for us all.

I have to say at the outset that I have been disappointed by the Scottish Government’s approach to the plan. It has singularly failed to reach out across Parliament to develop the strategy or listen to ideas from other parties in the chamber, beyond the Green Party, on which it now relies for support. That is a decision that Scottish National Party and Green ministers are free to take, but it will leave the strategy all the poorer.

Will Miles Briggs give way?

I do not have time at the moment.

New pressures on the cost of living, aggravated by the effects of successive lockdowns and the pandemic, such as rising food and fuel costs, now threaten to leave even more families impacted by, and living in, poverty. In 2019, 26 per cent of all children in Scotland were in relative poverty. In Glasgow, the number was as high as 32 per cent.

The Scottish child payment, which the Trussell Trust has identified as one of the forms of support that is most effective at addressing financial hardship, is welcome. Scottish Conservatives supported calls to double the payment, and I welcome the action that we have seen, as that targeted support is very important. However, our local authorities are often at the heart of action to support vulnerable families and have a critical role to play in helping to eliminate child poverty.

Will the member give way?

Very briefly, because I do not have a huge amount of time.

I am grateful to Mr Briggs for giving way. His argument for the importance of the Scottish child payment is well made. Does he not think that he should follow it through and enable the payment by supporting the Government’s budget, which he singularly failed to do earlier this year?

The reason why I did not support the Scottish Government budget was that it cut £250 million from local authorities. The cabinet secretary said in her statement that she wants to work in partnership with local authorities in Scotland. I do not see cutting their budget by £250 million as any partnership that I would want to be involved with. The decision by Green Party and SNP ministers to cut that funding will impact on child poverty and they should be acutely aware of that.

Creating better jobs and fairer job opportunities for families is incredibly important and I welcome what was outlined by the cabinet secretary. There is cross-party agreement on that.

In the time that I have, I want to concentrate on children in Scotland who are homeless and living in unsuitable and temporary accommodation. The housing emergency in Scotland is contributing to the level of child poverty, with children and families often stuck in unsuitable and unaffordable homes, or in temporary accommodation for unacceptable lengths of time. Families are being accommodated in former hotels and bed and breakfasts, and many have to share toilets with strangers and have to cook on toasters and kettles. That is totally unacceptable.

Across Scotland, more than 7,500 children are living in temporary accommodation and the typical length of stay for families in temporary accommodation has nearly doubled from what it was year ago to more than 58 weeks. Alison Watson of Shelter Scotland described the number of children in temporary accommodation as “a national disgrace” and I agree. A permanent safe home is vitally important for a child’s wellbeing and development.

The number of children becoming homeless every year is equivalent to 32 Scottish children every day, which is equivalent to a primary school class. Homelessness has been shown to have long-term negative consequences for a child or young person’s development. Children who have been homeless are three times more likely to experience mental health problems and their risk of ill health and disability is increased by up to 25 per cent. Any teacher will tell you that children who are living in temporary accommodation often struggle to maintain relationships and have increased anxiety.

SNP and Green ministers need to drive action on the issue. Bringing cases of living in temporary accommodation to an end for all children should have the full attention of the Government. I am sorry to say that all my efforts to engage on that issue with ministers and, indeed, the cabinet secretary have fallen on deaf ears.

Here in the capital, 1,500 children are living in temporary accommodation. The City of Edinburgh Council is being short-changed by £9 million due to a bureaucratic anomaly. The cabinet secretary has not listened to my calls for action to assist the council on that, but it is something that we need to see. Simply telling me to speak to the council is not good enough. SNP ministers cannot wash their hands of the housing crisis that is driving children into temporary accommodation here in the capital today.

Shelter Scotland stated in its briefing ahead of the debate:

“The 2022-2026 Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan must outline how the Scottish Government intends to get thousands of children out of temporary accommodation and unaffordable homes and out of poverty, and into safe, secure and affordable homes as a matter of priority.”

I read the delivery plan before I came to the chamber and I found nothing new on the issue. We need to see a new approach and, if the cabinet secretary had consulted with other parties, I would have called for us to develop a plan that went further and banned the practice of children living in temporary and unsuitable accommodation. That could have been in the document, but I am sorry to say that it is not.

The negative impact that the pandemic has had on Scotland’s children and young people is only now starting to be fully understood, but for the most vulnerable children and young people in our society we know that the impact has been significant. Realising the potential of every child and young person in Scotland is something that we must all see as a focus, but it is one that the strategy does not include.

One area that I believe needs urgent action is the long-term impact of lockdown on vulnerable children’s learning. Long-term, system-wide support is required to help every child to catch up and recover from the educational disruption that there has been to both learning and child development. For the most vulnerable children that, again, will need targeted support.

We know that, prior to the pandemic, the Scottish Government was failing to close the attainment gap. What I would like to see, and ministers should be looking at, is where we can prioritise young people’s education with the delivery of additional support through catch-up schemes for disadvantaged children and young people. We have been calling for those.

It is clear that we need to see a cross-portfolio effort from Government to make progress on addressing child poverty and that targeted support is needed. I welcome the fact that the Deputy First Minister is participating in the debate, because I hope that he will be tasked with taking forward that work.

However, there are longer-term issues that we, as a Parliament and as a country, need to consider around intergenerational unemployment and the need to drive social mobility. The SNP set ambitious targets on child poverty five years ago, but we have not been able to meet those as a Parliament, and the Government has not been able to meet them with all the powers that it has. The strategy has presented an opportunity to genuinely consider refocusing that effort, and I hope that that is what we will see.

To conclude, it is critical that we hold the SNP-Green Government to account, as it is accountable to Parliament, and that we see ministers set out detailed plans around another strategy to reduce child poverty. We now need to see how that strategy will be delivered on the ground, and it is our work to ensure that ministers achieve what they are setting out to do.

We desperately need targeted resources, and we need ministers to outline what the tackling child poverty delivery plan will actually achieve and how councils will be given the resources to help implement it. I agree that we need cross-party work if we are going to meet those targets, and I hope that the Government will start working to live up to that too.

15:55  

I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement. I welcome the publication of the second tackling child poverty delivery plan and the uplift to the Scottish child payment, but that is not enough. It is not enough to erase the string of warnings from experts that a fiver will not be enough—it will not even get enough nappies for a week—or that we will not meet the targets.

We cannot do half measures when it comes to poverty, and we cannot keep rehashing old policies and presenting them as new. What the plan does not do in half measures however, is set out “plans to” or do “reviews of”. We needed—children in Scotland needed—more new ideas and concrete policies today, not plans to have them in the future. The cost of living crisis is with us now, and plans do not pay the bills.

Yesterday’s solutions will not fix today’s problems. I hear the cabinet secretary say that the Government is on track to meet its legal child poverty targets, but it cannot pat itself on the back for doing so. Let us not forget that members on these Labour benches, the third sector and colleagues across the chamber had to drag the Government kicking and screaming to double the Scottish child payment.

Pam Duncan-Glancy cannot get away with that remark, because the Scottish Labour Party, when the moment of truth came, voted against the Scottish child payment in the budget. It is pointless for the Scottish Labour Party to come to the chamber and engage in the debate to then vote against the payment when the moment of truth comes. That is hypocrisy.

The Deputy First Minister understands parliamentary process far better than I do, as he has been here for longer. He will know that that is not a fair reflection on what happened. I simply do not have time today to go into all parts of the Government’s budget that caused us to vote against it, including the fact that it would not give £15 an hour to care workers. The Deputy First Minister knows that to be the case.

Civic society, think tanks, the third sector and academics have all lined up to help ministers in the SNP Government—even we, the Opposition, have tried to do their job for them. We have all set out a suite of options to reach the targets and to go further in order to ensure that we meet them, not just on a hope and a prayer, but by implementing measures that would ensure that, even on our worst day, with the worst outlook, we would get there.

Instead of taking the advice of experts on board, the Government has tinkered around the edges with small, piecemeal changes and rehashed policies rather than the bold and ambitious actions that are needed to radically improve the lives of children across Scotland.

Will the member take an intervention?

Is there time for a bit of slack?

A little.

Can Pam Duncan-Glancy not find it in herself to welcome a big, bold initiative—the mitigation of the benefit cap, which will lift thousands of children out of poverty and, for many families, will go well beyond the £40 Scottish child payment that she was advocating? Will she not welcome that?

The cabinet secretary will remember that I said that I welcomed the child poverty delivery plan. However, I note that £10 million is associated with the mitigation of the benefit cap, and I believe that figure to be at least £6 million short. It would be good to see the modelling that the cabinet secretary has based that figure on so that we can understand it. There is also very little detail in the Government’s plan on how it will mitigate the cap.

If, as the Government has suggested today, we meet the relative poverty interim targets, it will be by a small margin, which is a tragedy when we have the opportunity to do much more. The fact is that absolute poverty—that is, complete destitution—is set to still be at 16 per cent. That is around one in six children, which is nothing to be proud of. It represents inequality, and there is nothing in the plan to directly help families with babies under the age of one, one in three of whom are living in poverty, or black and minority ethnic families, 48 per cent of whom are in poverty. At a time when we need ambition and a Government that is hungry for change, the SNP-Green Government has given us nothing but complacency. One child in poverty is too many; one day is too long.

In the chamber, we have the habit of talking about child poverty in the abstract—numbers on a page and figures in a spreadsheet—but let us give those numbers a few names and faces.

That one child too many is Lukas, a 12-year-old boy in Glasgow. His dad, Symon, spends every single penny that he has with a purpose. Some of us in the chamber could go out to a restaurant or bar and spend £30, or possibly more. For Symon, that is his electricity for one week, so he does not have that luxury. He says:

“I watch how people just spend money on coffee, beer and food in cafes and bars. I would love that life.”

Symon had to take Lukas out of school because he was being bullied and called a skank by other children. That is too often the reality of children who live in poverty.

That one child is the child whose mother could not afford appropriate winter clothing for herself or her child. Another parent noticed and referred her to social services, leading her to feel that she had failed her own children. She had not; this Government had. Thankfully, Glasgow’s No.1 Baby & Family Support Service, which is a lifeline service in Glasgow, was able to help her to get winter clothing and essentials to keep her going. However, let us bear in mind that that is a third sector organisation that has been handed a £1 million cut in next year’s budget. Not only is it stepping up and stepping in where the Government is failing, it is not getting the thanks that it needs.

That one child is a little girl from Govanhill. At the weekends, she sees her dad, who lives on £60 a month after bills. He is having to raid the cupboards of his dead dad to find food to feed his little girl when she visits his home, which is freezing because he cannot afford to heat it. That young man does not know what he will do when the cupboards are bare; he cannot afford to restock them.

I say to the Government that it must not come to the chamber with pride; instead, we need humility. I welcome the further increase to the Scottish child payment, but we cannot ignore the fact that it took too long to raise the payment to £20 in the first place. It took so long that, although the Government stands here today telling us that it will increase the payment to £25, some families are still waiting for their payment to reach £20—that will not even happen until April and it should have happened sooner.

As the Government has so far failed to implement the full roll-out of the payment for the over-sixes, 150,000 children on bridging payments will not get the increase at all.

Please conclude, Ms Duncan-Glancy.

The Government has given no indication that it intends to uprate bridging payments, either. Over the next two years, we must have cast-iron action that will take us up to and well past our 2030 target. More of the same will not cut it. That is why Scottish Labour has launched its child poverty commission.

Thank you, Ms Duncan-Glancy.

We need more ambition. The time for bold action was long ago. We cannot wait and we cannot rely on tinkering around the edges.

16:02  

I am pleased to speak for the Scottish Liberal Democrats in this important debate on tackling child poverty.

Author Anthony Horowitz once wrote:

“Childhood, after all, is the first precious coin that poverty steals from a child.”

It has been four years since the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 set the target of fewer than 18 per cent of children living in relative poverty by 2024. However, in recent years, the child poverty rate has increased in Scotland. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has warned that the Government is at risk of missing the target, which was agreed unanimously by this Parliament.

The Government’s figures show that more than one in four of Scotland’s children are officially recognised as living in poverty. That equates to around 260,000 children. In 2022, in one of the wealthiest nations on earth, that figure is unacceptable. It is even more shameful when we note the fact that 68 per cent of children in poverty live in working households, 29 per cent of children with a disabled family member are in poverty and 38 per cent of children in poverty are in lone parent households.

Numerous studies have found that children who grow up in poverty experience many disadvantages that can have a negative impact on their health and significant social consequences. Those effects are felt both during childhood and well into adulthood. There is a significant impact on health outcomes, educational attainment and even cognitive development.

It should go without saying that every child has the right to safety and warmth, a roof over their head and food in their belly. It is important to say that poverty is not just about a lack of money. All too often it means that children are excluded from everyday activities and opportunities that are vital to their development, happiness and mental wellbeing and that children from more privileged backgrounds are able to benefit from.

What should be done? Everyone, no matter where they come from or what family they were born into, deserves the opportunity to build a good life for themselves. In modern Scotland, every parent should know that they have the means to provide such an environment for their children. Everyone deserves to be paid a fair wage, to afford a home, and to be able to use good public services, but for too many people, that is far from the reality, and that has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. All this is happening even before the cost of living crisis has started to take hold. The impact on low-income households, and the knock-on effect on children who are already living in poverty could be catastrophic.

Put simply, it is the duty of the Government to do everything in its power to alleviate the crisis and to move towards a Scotland that is free of child poverty as soon as is humanly possible. The Scottish Liberal Democrats believe that that will start with the Government reversing its planned £250 million cut to councils that will inevitably force them to raise council tax, and heap yet more pressure on low-income families.

The 3.8 per cent rise in rail fares should also be cancelled and disability benefits boosted. It is welcome that the Scottish Government is implementing a 6 per cent increase to a number of Scottish social security benefits from April. It is, however, not going far enough with disability benefits, which are being raised by just 3.1 per cent. That is 3 per cent less than the figure for inflation that was announced yesterday, and potentially 5 per cent less than the inflation figure that experts are predicting.

Can the member find it in herself to welcome any aspect of the plan, particularly the mitigation of the benefit cap, which was, after all, introduced under the Lib Dem and Tory coalition in 2013? I have announced today that it will be mitigated fully, as far as we can do so under devolved powers. Does the member welcome that?

I would welcome any plans that tackled child poverty.

The result of what I have outlined is that thousands of people will be hit directly in their pockets, and more people will be pushed into poverty. That is simply not good enough for thousands of families across Scotland. It is certainly not good enough for the 29 per cent of impoverished children with a disabled family member, who I mentioned earlier.

I will finish by speaking about the crossover that can often exist between childhood poverty and mental health. It is often teachers who notice that something is wrong with the home life, and it can be the case that parental mental ill-health is at the root of the situation. There are countless reasons why families can find themselves in a situation in which children and parents are going hungry, including the delays that are built into universal credit, insecure work and having no recourse to public funds. There are clear links between mental ill-health and poverty, which is why improvement in the provision of mental health services in Scotland is something that we have always prioritised and highlighted.

Childhood should be a time to explore the world, to learn, grow and play, all while secure in the knowledge that things are going to be okay, that there will always be food on the table, and a warm, safe place to call home. That should be the case for every child in this country, and we must all endeavour to make it so.

We now move to the open debate, and I call Elena Whitham, who joins us remotely, to be followed by Alexander Stewart. Ms Whitham, you have up to six minutes.

16:48  

Before I embark on my speech in support of the Scottish Government’s efforts to tackle child poverty, I want to put a human face to what we are discussing here today. As a child, I had to face poverty twice in my life before the age of nine. The extreme downturn in Scotland’s manufacturing fortunes meant that we became economic migrants in 1980, when, at the young age of 23, my parents packed me and my two-year-old brother into a jumbo jet bound for Canada at Prestwick airport.

Christmas of 1982 is also seared into my consciousness, as my father had been made redundant and my mother started to work nights in a doughnut shop to make ends meet. The ends never met, and, on that Christmas day, I watched as my mum struggled to make us a meal from the food parcel that we had received from the food bank. With Christmas cartoons on in the background, she served us homemade rice pudding for Christmas dinner with tears rolling down her cheeks as my wee brother pushed it away in disgust. At eight years old, I already knew the immense pressure my parents were under, and I cajoled him into eating the hated rice pudding, as there was nothing else to be had.

That period of food insecurity has affected my relationship with food throughout my entire life. It was a time when, in the absence of free school meals, my mum tried her best to ensure that I had something nutritious to accompany the flask of hot, sugary tea in my lunchbox. I was hyperaware that we were struggling and tried to hide my lunch from my classmates. There will be others in this place who also experienced childhood hunger and deep-seated, poverty-induced worry, and it is up to us to bring that lived experience with us as we make decisions that will have a lasting impact on our youngest and most vulnerable citizens.

As we stand on the precipice of a growing and deepening cost of living crisis, my heart is again filled with dread and worry for those children whose struggles are going to multiply and for those weans who will experience their first encounter with poverty despite their parents’ best efforts and despite the efforts of the SNP Government, which has made it a national mission to turn the tide on centuries of child poverty despite having one hand tied behind its back. Nowhere else on these islands do we see the equivalent of our game-changing Scottish child payment, which is set to be doubled from April and to which an extra £5 is now set to be added by the end of this year. When that is combined with our three best start grants and our best start foods scheme, families will have £10,000 invested in their first child by the Government by the time they turn six. If a family has the dreaded bedroom tax looming over them, we will make sure that that is mitigated, too, which will free up much-needed family income for necessities and help them to secure their home. We are also committed to continuing to build affordable homes faster than anywhere else in the UK as we seek to realise our aim of ending homelessness and its traumatic impacts.

The Child Poverty Action Group’s recent report highlights that, by the time a child is 16, Scottish Government interventions will have reduced the cost of raising that child by 31 per cent—a huge £24,000—despite the UK Tory Government’s implementation of savage welfare cuts, including the short-sighted removal of the £20 universal credit uplift and the regrettable benefit cap, which includes the abhorrent requirement that women disclose rape trauma in order to secure much-needed money for their third child. That tells us everything that we need to know about the Conservatives’ approach to tackling child poverty.

The inaction of the chancellor in yesterday’s spring statement further underlines their total disregard for those families who are most at risk from the volatility of our present situation. If a family cannot afford to top up their prepayment meter or buy enough food, they cannot benefit from the removal of VAT on solar panels. It is a great shame that the chancellor did not follow our lead and uprate social security by 6 per cent, choosing instead to pander to his base. That should be contrasted with the approach of the Scottish Government that has been set out today, which will involve the investment of £10 million per year to mitigate the benefit cap, which disproportionately impacts on lone parents. Surely, that move is welcomed across the chamber.

When my son was a toddler, we struggled to move from benefits back into work, as the transition period meant huge financial hardship for the first few months. Therefore, I am really pleased that today’s announcement shows that the Scottish Government also understands those pressures and that, in 2022-23, it will invest up to £15 million in a new fund to tackle the financial barriers that parents face when they enter the labour market, especially when they do so for the first time.

As the convener of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, I want to ensure the maximum uptake of our devolved benefits, and I will work on a cross-party basis to ensure that all families who are entitled to help receive it. That could include creating a system that makes automatic awards across social security and local authority payments, which would involve clothing grants and free school meals tying in with the Scottish child payment. The Scottish welfare fund also plays a huge role in tackling poverty that is caused by crisis situations, and I will work to ensure that it is funded and equitable across local authority areas.

All our wee yins deserve the best start and the brightest of futures, and we must do all that we can to support them. I therefore welcome the cabinet secretary’s statement and our updated strategy, which calls on all of us in the public, private and voluntary sectors to work collectively in this most important of endeavours. Imagine what we could do if we were a normal, everyday, common-or-garden independent country with all the levers.

16:14  

I am pleased to contribute to a debate about an issue that is of fundamental importance. I welcome the publication of the “Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022-26”, and I look forward to closely scrutinising its content and the progress that is made on it over the years.

Few issues in politics will attract as much agreement on their importance as tackling child poverty. The issue of poverty more generally is frequently discussed, but we know that child poverty carries with it a set of particular concerns. The unfortunate truth is that a child who grows up in poverty is more likely to suffer problems with their emotional and cognitive development, and those problems may continue into adulthood.

The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 received unanimous support in this Parliament and enshrined in law a number of child poverty targets. That was clearly considered a priority in 2017, but the events of the past two years have shone an entirely different light on this important issue. We know that the pandemic has created further challenges in tackling child poverty, but analysis by the Fraser of Allander Institute suggests that we will not know the full extent of the damage for a number of years. Consequently, there has perhaps never been more uncertainty about how we can make progress in tackling child poverty.

Unfortunately, the most recent figures suggest that absolute child poverty is 17 per cent higher than the target and that it continues to rise. We also know that, before the pandemic, the number of children involved in homelessness applications was increasing. Shelter Scotland recently described the number of children in temporary accommodation as “a national disgrace”.

I am hopeful that the measures that have been put in place will be effective in driving down child poverty. We acknowledge the doubling of the Scottish child payment, which we repeatedly called for, and I was delighted to see that in this year’s budget.

Childcare provision is another important component in fighting and challenging child poverty. Conservatives supported the decision to introduce 30 hours per week of free childcare across all local authorities, and it was a positive step to see that policy finally put in place in August 2021. There is still much more to do to ensure that those childcare hours are available and that parents can depend on them. The “funding follows the child” approach was the correct one to base the policy on, but there are still some parents who find it difficult to access that. I therefore urge the SNP-Green Government to do more to ensure that the policy is finally able to realise its potential to drive down child poverty.

You have outlined a number of Scottish Government moves that you support. A lot of great work is going on, and your party talks continuously about Scotland’s two Governments. Can you explain what the Government in England did yesterday to help tackle child poverty in Scotland?

Please speak through the chair, Mr Fairlie.

The broad shoulders of financial support from the UK Government have gone miles towards ensuring that funding continues to come to Scotland. That will trickle down to ensure that everyone across Scotland is given funding to support them.

Other measures, such as the introduction of universal free school meals in primary schools, will also help in that process. It is, however, regrettable that the Scottish Government will not be implementing the policy in full by August this year, as was originally planned.

Despite such measures, analysis suggests that, by 2023-24, relative child poverty will still be as much as 4 per cent higher than the interim target of 18 per cent. So, although we may see a certain amount of progress on the issue in the coming years, it is unlikely that that progress will be completely satisfactory. I therefore urge the SNP-Green Government to leave no stone unturned in attempting to meet both the interim and primary targets of the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017.

Doing that will include listening to recommendations from the Poverty and Inequality Commission, which has called for the Government to reduce barriers to employment and to ensure that a job guarantee is provided for families. Higher rates of employment are associated with lower rates of child poverty and higher levels of educational attainment. However, the Scottish Government’s record in that area is not something to be proud of. Last year, Audit Scotland reported that there is still much more work to do to close the poverty-related attainment gap.

Recent reforms to pupil equity funding have massive implications for local authorities and are unlikely to close the attainment gap. It may even be widened. Those reforms include the removal of £800,000 of funding from Clackmannanshire, in my region. The Government needs to go back to the drawing board on that issue to ensure that every child is given the chance to succeed, regardless of their background.

In conclusion, there might well be some way to go before the 2030 targets that are set out in the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 are due to be met, but that fact does not make the need to meet them any less urgent. Action is required to meet those targets, and, over the coming years, Conservatives will work actively to ensure that any issues are raised. We will also constructively support measures that take things forward. I will ensure that we scrutinise what happens in relation to need, because it is vital that we support every child to reach their full potential, come out of poverty and break that cycle.

I call Natalie Don, who joins us remotely.

16:20  

I am proud of the actions that Scotland is taking to tackle child poverty and of the further measures announced by the cabinet secretary today, which I know will have a real impact on people’s lives. However, I will not be content until every child in Scotland is free from the grip of poverty. Every child deserves the right to three meals a day, every child deserves a warm home, every child deserves to have a decent standard of living—and that is the bare minimum. Every child also deserves to enjoy their childhood and not be dragged down by the stigma and the anxiety that poverty inevitably brings.

Child poverty is set only to worsen because of the cost of living crisis that we are now experiencing. Food bills are rising rapidly, and that alone will result in more families making difficult choices. The reliance on food banks will only increase. Energy price hikes, according to the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, will cause direct debit customers to see their bills soar by an average of £693 and prepayment customers to see an increase of £708 a year.

Breaking that down to a minimum of about £57 per month, I honestly do not know how people are going to manage. We are predicted to see a huge increase in levels of debt among people who struggle with those bills, and for those on prepayment meters, we could see people going without electricity for days. If any members do not know what it is like to wake up and get ready for school on a cold morning when your power has run out, let me tell them: it ain’t fun. That is only going to become a more regular occurrence for children in all our constituencies.

Today we have heard about some of the increased measures that the Scottish Government has taken to address child poverty. However, I genuinely fear that, no matter what policies we implement and no matter how much money we invest for the children in our country, it will always be counteracted by the cruel Tory Government policies that are implemented at Westminster. The audacity of some of the Opposition members in this chamber just blows me away.

Coming during one of the biggest crises that our people have faced, yesterday’s spring statement was a chance for the Tories to take a different path. They could have scrapped the 10 per cent national insurance hike. They could have followed the SNP’s lead and uprated benefits by 6 per cent, matched the SNP’s Scottish child payment and made it UK-wide, and in turn given Scotland additional financial resources to protect and increase our spending on social security. They could have reversed the cut to universal credit, reversed the decision to scrap the triple lock, and introduced a windfall tax on energy companies’ excessive profits and put that money back into the pockets of people who are struggling to keep the lights on. Instead, they did nothing.

Parliaments should aim to be representative of society, but, at Westminster, 29 per cent of MPs are privately educated, compared with just 7 per cent of the general population. How can we possibly expect those MPs to understand the hardships that are faced by working families, when more than a quarter of them have been brought up completely sheltered from working-class and impoverished families? How can we expect those same people to have the slightest inkling as to what those families experience on a daily basis? Perhaps the UK chancellor could take a minute away from one of his luxury villas or fancy yachts and come to my constituency and live on the money that he is expecting our children to live on. He would not last five minutes, I am sure.

The United Nations has openly condemned the UK Government for its austerity agenda, which blatantly targets those that need our help the most. Meanwhile, we have Tories who have the brass neck to smile for photos at our food banks. Do they realise that it is their fault that those continue to exist at all? They have the powers to end food poverty right now so that no child or parent has to go through that experience.

Over the past decade or so, food banks have become normalised in our society, but they are not normal and never should be, because they are a failure of the UK political system. I have focused on the Conservative Party in relation to food banks today, but I should give an honourable mention to the Liberal Democrats, who propped up the austerity agenda and got into bed with a Conservative Government. Of course, we cannot forget our friends in the Labour Party who, when in government, brought food banks into existence in the first place.

In Scotland, the SNP is doing what we can to protect children. For example, the devolution of the child disability payment will mean that we have a system in Scotland that will ensure that children who are entitled to CDP are treated with dignity and respect. However, as with all other devolved social security measures, we are at the mercy of Tory fiscal decision making. If the Tories choose to slash spending on social security, that will directly impact the financial resources that Scotland has available, and we can only do so much to mitigate that without the full fiscal powers of independence.

If the Scottish Tories have any credibility left, they will go back to their chancellor in London and implore him to deliver the policies and reverse the cuts and national insurance hike, as the SNP has called for. It is not too late for them to do so.

If Westminster is not prepared to take action, it should devolve the necessary powers to Scotland, so that we have the fiscal autonomy to deal with the issue. Better yet, Westminster should not stand in Scotland’s way when this Parliament calls for an independence referendum. I suspect that the Opposition members will be rolling their eyes at that, but it is time that they wake up to the reality.

The only way that we can protect Scotland’s future and our children is by having the levers that every other independent country possesses. With those powers, we could ensure that child poverty in Scotland becomes something that is present only in history books.

Our Scottish Government is doing all that it can, within its powers and resources, to tackle child poverty, and the policies and steps that are laid out in the child poverty action plan will be crucial. However, the true powers to address child poverty remain with Westminster, and I look forward to the day when, once and for all, an independent Scotland puts an end to child poverty and poverty in all its forms.

16:26  

It is my view that the overarching priority of the Scottish Parliament should be to tackle, reduce and eradicate child poverty.

Child poverty is a huge challenge that faces our country. It limits opportunity for children in every town and deepens the inequalities that already exist in our society, from the second that the child is born. It should shame us all that child poverty remains as prevalent as it does in our country today. We stand in this chamber, week in and week out, discussing the modern, inclusive and progressive Scotland that we think exists when, in reality, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, between 2017 and 2020, almost one in four children were living in relative poverty and more than one in five children were living in absolute poverty. That is nothing short of a national disgrace and we must redouble our efforts to address it every day. Figures like that represent not just a number but a dark and difficult reality for so many children and their families across Scotland. It is unjust and unacceptable, and we in this chamber must do all that we can to fix it.

Therefore, we must look at the dilemma that faces parents today. They bring their children up in a Scotland where the richest continue to own the wealth, while those who are most deprived in our most deprived areas work on low wages in order to create that wealth. That is not a modern, inclusive or progressive Scotland; it is far from it. It is, in fact, representative of a Scotland that has two Governments—at Holyrood and Westminster—that are bereft of ideas and often focused on other matters. I say to the SNP and the Conservatives—think again, because it is only when every child does well that we will all do well.

In a constructive manner and on the basis of what she has just said, would Carol Mochan support more powers coming to this Parliament over taxes such as capital gains and inheritance tax, so that we could start to realise some of the wealth in Scotland in a more progressive way? Without those powers, we are very limited in some of the things that we can do.

I can give you the time back, Ms Mochan.

Thank you.

Ben Macpherson will understand that I believe that we should use the powers that we have and that we should be open to the fact that the whole economy should run in a different way, in order to benefit those in society who need the most from us.

I say again to the SNP and the Conservatives: think again. It is only when every child does well that we will all do well. There is enough wealth and resources to ensure bread and roses for everyone. What is lacking is the political will of Governments to make it happen. To not think like that is to let down those who have been impacted for decades by poor policy decisions and lack of radical thought.

I want to be clear from the outset that I deplore the Tory Government attacks on working-class people. The Tories are the friends of the rich and show no interest in redistributing wealth to those most in need. That was only reaffirmed by yesterday’s spring statement by the chancellor, which tinkers around the edges and fails to recognise the scale of the cost of living crisis, and instead puts more financial pressure on working families and makes it more difficult to alleviate the situation of children in poverty. Our children, our communities and the entire country deserve so much more.

However, as an MSP here in this chamber at this moment in time, it is my job to hold this Scottish Government to account, and I ask it to do more. I ask it whether it is doing absolutely everything that it can do to eradicate child poverty. I ask the back benchers whether, at every opportunity, they ask their front-bench members to do more.

Members should not just listen to me, but listen to the Trussell Trust and Save the Children and their report, “Tackling Child Poverty and Destitution”. I will give some consideration to the policies that they believe the Scottish Government needs to take forward to tackle child poverty targets.

Although a commitment to increase the Scottish child payment—after several months of intense pressure from Scottish Labour—is welcome, as is today’s announcement of an increase to £25 before the end of the year, I ask the Scottish Government to listen to us once again and double the Scottish child payment from £20 to £40 by April next year. I will go on to say why it should do that.

Amid a cost of living crisis for many, the likes of which we have never seen before, it is absolutely pivotal that those most in need are supported financially to put food on the table and ensure that, despite the difficulties placed on all of us by the pandemic and the immediate cost of living crisis, the Scottish Government’s child poverty targets are met. That is what we all want.

We know that the Scottish child payment contributes massively towards tackling child poverty, and it alleviates pressure on families in receipt of it, but we cannot ignore the fact that, even with the progress made, the payment’s roll-out has to be quicker and more effectively targeted, and the amount of the payment has to increase further. Although the Scottish Government has come forward with an optimistic prediction today, many organisations believe that failure to deliver that will likely lead to the Scottish Government’s failure to meet some of its child poverty targets. It is unacceptable to even take that chance.

If the Scottish Government is going to tackle child poverty properly, surely its priority must be to listen to the experts, work with precision and purpose, and deliver the changes needed to alleviate the barriers of poverty, which hinder so many children. I remind the Government that that starts by ending the incessant cuts to local government.

Scottish Labour’s plan to address this huge challenge is clear: increase the child payment, invest in local services, tackle the cost of living crisis, show ambition and show strategy for that ambition. I believe that the SNP-Green Government wants to do something about child poverty, but it is up to it to decide whether it will actually do everything that it can. Scottish Labour will always be on the side of working families and those living in poverty. Again, I say to SNP and Green back benchers: come and join us and call on the Scottish Government to use all the might of the Scottish Parliament in tackling the number 1 priority—to save thousands of children from the dire impact of poverty.

16:33  

Eradicating child poverty has been declared a national mission by the Scottish Government, and it must be a mission for us all. As we have seen during the pandemic, it is often the most vulnerable who suffer the most, and with rising fuel, food and housing costs, that mission requires urgent action now more than ever. I welcome the cabinet secretary’s remarks that the current cost of living crisis and international uncertainty have strengthened the Government’s resolve to work across society.

I also welcome the actions that were laid out in the statement: increasing the Scottish child payment to £25, which is five times the initial amount, and extending it to all under-16s at the end of the year; increasing employment services and supporting up to 12,000 parents into fair and sustainable work; introducing the new £15 million fund to tackle financial barriers to work; and taking steps to mitigate the UK Government’s benefit cap.

The development of the delivery plan identified a range of priority groups among which, as the evidence shows, the prevalence of child poverty is higher: households with a disabled parent or child; minority ethnic households; larger families; lone parents; mothers under 25; and families with a child under one year of age. People’s lives do not fit neatly into boxes and, inevitably, there will be many people who have more than one of those vulnerabilities. All those groups will benefit from the actions that have been outlined. Doubling the Scottish child payment to £20 in April, then increasing it to £25, is an example of real action that makes a difference to families, especially children, and it underlines the Scottish Government’s commitment on this matter. When we can, getting cash into the hands of those who need it is crucial, and it is the most dignified approach. Families themselves know what they need.

I have heard the line a few times from Opposition members—admittedly not in this debate, but this week—that there is not a constitutional solution to the cost of living crisis. Of course, simply having the power and the responsibility does not mean that a Government will tackle poverty and inequality. We see that at Westminster, where, yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not use every lever and resource at his hands to protect and support families. However, no one serious can fail to acknowledge that the actions of our Scottish Government are being undermined by the UK Government’s austerity. Combined with a deeply damaging £20 cut to universal credit, the constant need to mitigate the actions of the Conservative Government to protect our citizens means that investment made to alleviate policies such as the obscene bedroom tax is money that is spent to stand still.

I have greater ambition for my country than simply reducing the worst harms caused by a Tory Government—a Government that Scotland did not vote for. We can see the difference. Better choices can be made here, even under the current set-up.

The relationship that the member describes is also the relationship between the Scottish Government and councils, so the decision that her Government took to cut £250 million from council budgets will also have an impact. Does she not accept that?

We are operating in challenging times. The Scottish Government’s budget has been cut. We have outlined a number of areas in which the Government is taking action. I have just said that one of the most important things that we can do is to put money directly into the pockets of families who are affected.

Until we have the full powers and responsibility of independence, we will have to work with one hand tied behind our back. Despite that, the Scottish Government is maximising incomes and providing support through devolved social security powers, with the eight Scottish social security benefits being increased by 6 per cent from 1 April. That will go some way in helping the most vulnerable with the cost of living crisis.

Of the almost £6 billion that has been invested over the past three years to support low-income households across Scotland, more than a third—about £2.18 billion—has directly benefited children. The benefit take-up strategy is crucial, too. Despite what some of the nastier commentators might have us believe, a lot of people are not claiming their full entitlement. I know that to be true from my casework. Income maximisation is an important offering in a lot of our community organisations, but I particularly acknowledge the work of North Ayrshire Council’s money matters team. In the past two years, it has helped North Ayrshire residents to secure £30 million in state benefits—money that those citizens are entitled to, and money that is, more often than not, spent in the local economy.

Social security alone is not the answer. We need continued, focused action from other parts of the Government to contribute to meeting targets. Housing is crucial. Rent payments are the single biggest cost for many households, and year-on-year increases from social landlords squeeze family budgets that are already stretched. I know that the cabinet secretary agrees that we must ensure that affordable housing in Scotland is truly affordable, and I look forward to hearing about the work that the Scottish Government is doing in that regard.

Bringing together policies on economic development, transport, skills and childcare provision, with a focus on knocking down barriers to employment, would be a hugely powerful and effective approach. I know that there are limitations on what the Scottish Government can do to improve job quality in the private sector, but the commitments in the national strategy for economic transformation to improve wages and conditions in sectors such as leisure, hospitality, early learning and childcare, through central fair work agreements, provide a very welcome focus. No one action in isolation can make the scale of difference that we need, but with direct efforts to get more cash into the pockets of families now and action on economic development, transport, skills, childcare and other family supports, we can make a difference to families now and make real progress on sustained poverty reduction.

16:40  

The challenge of tackling child poverty in Scotland is immense and incredibly important. Families and communities still reeling from the impact of the Covid pandemic are now being hit hard by the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the resulting cost of living crisis. That will only add to the acute problems faced by the families and children who endure life in poverty.

The problem has increased in recent years. The Poverty and Inequality Commission report in January highlighted that the percentage of children living in relative poverty has increased from 21 per cent a decade ago to 24 per cent now. We can all agree that tackling such issues must be an urgent priority for all parties across Parliament. Therefore, we welcome the publication of the tackling child poverty delivery plan today. There is much in it that we can support. We welcome the doubling of the child payment to £20 and the plan to increase it to £25 over time, and we support the extension of free school meals to all primary school pupils. We have been calling for those measures.

In addition to those measures, we welcome yesterday’s spring statement from the chancellor, which delivers additional support for low-income households, including an increase to the national insurance threshold—a move that has been described by the consumer expert Martin Lewis as a big boon to those on low incomes.

The chancellor also announced a doubling of the household support fund to £1 billion, which will result in an extra £45 million in Barnett consequentials to the Scottish Government to support struggling families. The reduction in the rate of income tax announced yesterday will deliver an additional £350 million to the Scottish Government budget, and I look forward to hearing from the cabinet secretary or the Deputy First Minister what plans the Scottish Government has for that additional funding.

All those steps from the Scottish and UK Governments are welcome and will make a difference, but, as we know, much more still needs to be done to tackle the long-term challenges of child poverty. In order to address that long-term, society-wide problem, we need to understand where the powers reside to deal with the issue. The cabinet secretary said in her statement that the powers and budget available to the Scottish Government are limited, but I remind her that extensive welfare powers were devolved to the Scottish Parliament in the Scotland Act 2016. The Scottish Government could use those welfare powers now—I appreciate that some are being used to create additional benefits to target vulnerable families.

Does the member recognise that 12 benefits are now being delivered, seven of which are new? The devolution of powers in the Scotland Act 2016 did not include a majority of the low-income benefits in the social security system; those continue to reside with the UK Government. Is the member as disappointed as many people are, including Martin Lewis, whom he cited, that there was zero action from the chancellor on low-income benefits? That is a disgrace.

On Ben Macpherson’s final point, in relation to the organisations that he mentioned, he is ultimately saying that more money should be available in the Scottish budget to tackle child poverty. I agree with that and, shortly, I will explain the real reason why that money is not available in the Scottish budget.

The Scottish Government has received record funding from the UK Government. Last year, the chancellor announced an extra £4.6 billion for the Scottish Government, which made it the largest overall budget, and the largest budget increase, in the history of devolution. However—here is the point that directly addresses Ben Macpherson’s question—this year’s Scottish budget will involve a negative adjustment of £200 million entirely as a result of economic growth being slower in Scotland than in the rest of the UK. In other words, the Scottish budget is losing £200 million, which could have been spent on alleviating child poverty, because of the SNP’s inability to keep pace with economic growth elsewhere in the UK. That is the reality, Mr Macpherson.

While we are talking about lost money and lost opportunity, we heard yesterday of another £250 million being wasted on two ferries that might never see the light of day. I will not go into a longer catalogue of mismanagement by the Scottish Government, but that is a total of £450 million that would have made a huge difference to struggling families and would have been available to spend in the Scottish budget but for the SNP’s incompetence.

Will the member take an intervention?

I am afraid not. I have a lot to cover, and my time is short.

I want to touch on the underlying causes of long-term poverty. It is absolutely right that we talk about the consequences of long-term poverty, but its long-term underlying causes include unemployment, low wages for unskilled workers and the education gap, and those underlying causes have not been properly addressed. Levels of job creation and employment in Scotland are far behind those in other areas in the UK. Inactivity rates are much higher and wages are lower in Scotland. Some 150,000 college places have been cut under the Scottish Government. Those places were most likely to help low-paid workers to retrain and get better jobs. As we have heard, local government budgets have been slashed by £250 million this year. After 15 years of the SNP being in power, the education attainment gap has not been addressed. There are almost 2,000 fewer teachers in schools, and the shortage is particularly severe in deprived areas.

Where does the member get his facts?

I say to Mr Swinney that those are facts. He knows that they are facts. All those negative factors result in a long-term cycle of negative outcomes and multigenerational poverty. [Interruption.] I say to Mr Swinney that I am talking about the underlying causes, which the SNP has had 15 years to deal with.

Mr Swinney, if you want to make an intervention that is not from a sedentary position, I will allow Mr Lockhart to have additional time.

Does Mr Lockhart not realise that his comments are somewhat thin on constructive ideas about how the Government’s plans could be advanced and enhanced? [Interruption.] Mr Briggs is going on about our not consulting. The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government consulted everybody, including Parliament. What stopped the Tories or Mr Lockhart making a constructive suggestion this afternoon that would break the monotony from Tory members?

I suggest that Mr Swinney should read our manifesto. The point of my comments is to address the distorted reality and narrative that we hear from the SNP that child poverty and all the other problems are the fault of someone else—that someone else is to blame—whereas the reality is that the Scottish Government has the powers at its disposal and the budget. I have highlighted that, but for the Scottish Government’s incompetence, £450 million would be available to tackle child poverty.

I will conclude. We welcome—constructively—all measures to address child poverty. The reality is that the SNP has the powers, the resources and the budget available to make a difference, and it has had 15 years to address the underlying causes of poverty, which I have outlined. However, on all those counts, the SNP is failing to deliver.

16:47  

In his withering assessment of the impact of the UK Government’s policies on extreme poverty, Philip Alston of the United Nations called poverty “a political choice.” It is a choice. It was a choice when the UK Government cut off child tax credit support for families who have more than two children while spending a quarter of a billion pounds on a new royal yacht, and it was a choice yesterday to cut fuel duty by 5 per cent, inflate the profit margins of fossil fuel corporations and make it cheaper for the rich to drive gas guzzlers, with no effect on the millions of low-income families with no access to a car.

Where have those choices got us? According to the latest data, 24 per cent of our children—240,000 of them—are in poverty.

If poverty is a choice, we can choose differently. That is what the Scottish Parliament was set up to do: to make different and better choices for Scotland.

“Best Start, Bright Futures: Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022-2026”, which was published today, is not a perfect plan, but it should give us confidence that we will make progress towards a Scotland that is free from child poverty and meet the targets that Parliament set itself five years ago. The pledge to increase the Scottish child payment to £25 is welcome, and I was pleased to hear that it is now part of an additional £10,000 per first child within the initial six years of a child’s life.

However, we must be constantly alive to new opportunities to use the social security system to reduce child poverty. As we have seen from the several fairly rapid increases in the child payment and the cabinet secretary’s assurance that they will lift 50,000 children out of poverty, it is a powerful tool. We need to keep exploring how it can be used even more. The Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland has estimated that disability and lone parent premiums of £10 a week added on to the payment would lift an additional 20,000 children out of poverty. I know that the cabinet secretary will keep that and similar proposals under active consideration.

However, to be frank, extra entitlements are useless if people are not supported to claim them. Too many households still do not claim what they are entitled to, whether because they have been put off by decades of denigration of benefit claimants from successive UK Governments of all colours or because they simply are not aware of what they can receive. Therefore, it is good that a substantive part of the plan focuses on income maximisation. For instance, there will be social security training for all health visitors by the end of 2024 to ensure that all new parents have access to money advice if they need it. Reaffirmation of the commitment to placing money advisers in up to 150 general practices in some of Scotland’s most deprived areas is also very welcome.

The benefit cap is a fundamental distortion of our social security system. It draws an entirely arbitrary limit on household entitlement, regardless of need. In effect, the UK Government pays households even less than its own assessment says they require to meet basic needs. On average, families lose £235 a month, but some lose far more: 15 per cent of capped families lose out on more than £400 a month and recent figures show that 10 Scots families are losing between £900 and £1,000 a month. Worst of all, the cap laser targets children for cuts, as the vast majority of affected households have at least one child. Because most of the households that are impacted are lone parent families and such families experience a poverty rate 14 per cent higher than the average, it is imperative that we do all that we can to mitigate the impact of the cap.

In a recent report, the Child Poverty Action Group estimates that scrapping the benefit cap, which only the UK Government can do in full, would lift 175,000 children out of poverty across the UK. Even the architect of the Welfare Reform Act 2012, which introduced the cap, David Freud, has called for it to be abolished. Greens have raised that point in Parliament and with the Scottish Government for many years, including through the co-operation agreement, so I am pleased to see a commitment in the plan to mitigate the benefit cap as much as possible, backed by £10 million.

Thousands of families are hit by the benefit cap right now. We should aim to find every last one of them and get them the support to which they are entitled. Along with the new system of rent controls that is being designed by Greens in government and will take effect during the lifetime of the plan, action against the benefit cap is an important part of the new deal for renters that the Greens also champion.

The Greens welcome the delivery plan. I thank Shona Robison and others for the constructive conversations that we have had about it up to this point. It is not a perfect plan. For example, I would have liked more focus on what more we can do to support people who are impacted by the UK Government’s cruel no recourse to public funds regime. I think that we will see additional asks on that as the crisis in Ukraine worsens.

Although the Scottish Government projects that the interim target for relative poverty reduction will be met and exceeded, which is welcome, the projections state that the absolute poverty target will be missed. That shows how much more work we have to do, but it is clear from the plan that we are choosing a different Scotland: one that redistributes wealth to support people on low incomes, not one that grinds them into poverty; one that makes it easier, not harder, for them to access support; and one where no child should ever grow up in poverty.

I call Claire Baker, who joins us remotely.

16:53  

Scotland places compassion and justice at the heart of everything that we do. It is a place where everyone should have a decent standard of living and the same chances in life no matter who they are or where they come from. However, it is also a place where poverty, including child poverty, is increasing and where more and more families and individuals have to rely on food banks or struggle to pay their bills. Scotland is a place where 1 million people live in poverty and the constant pressure of it can dominate their lives.

Before the pandemic, rates of relative and deep child poverty across Scotland were increasing. Demand on food banks and food parcel distributions is at an all-time high. Now, the withdrawal of emergency support, alongside the cost of living crisis, means that household budgets are under more strain than ever before but those who are in need are getting less support to deal with it. No one chooses to have their child go to bed hungry or to turn off the heating on a cold night. However, for far too many families, that is the reality: parents who cannot afford winter coats and shoes, and kids who are not getting birthday presents or Christmas gifts.

More than 240,000 children in Scotland are experiencing poverty right now, and more than half will have experienced poverty by the time they are 12 years old. Every one child living in poverty is one too many. Those children and their families do not want to hear an argument between Governments about who is most responsible. They do not want to be told how the pandemic has changed the backdrop—they have experienced it, and they continue to feel its impact at first hand. They do not care to compare figures with those for families in another country. They want to know whether they have food for their next meal and whether they can afford to heat their homes. They need money in their pockets today.

The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 mandates that less than 18 per cent of children should be in relative poverty by 2023-24, and less than 10 per cent by 2030-31, yet prior to the pandemic, child poverty rates were increasing in every region of Scotland. In Fife, child poverty has increased by 2.7 per cent since 2015, to 26.4 per cent in 2019-20. More than one in four children in Fife are living in poverty—that is 16,981, or almost 17,000, children. That is shameful.

In Fife, as in many areas, community organisations have been stepping up to deliver support where they can to fill the gaps and help those on their doorstep to get by. That support is invaluable, and community groups should have a role in local delivery, but we need better support so that fewer families have to rely on those safety nets.

The First Minister has previously said that she wanted the driving mission of the Parliament to be ending child poverty, but the action to date, although it indicates that we could see some progress, does not match the ambition of those words. The failure to end poverty is a failure to end wider inequalities. We know that children in poverty are more likely to be from ethnic minorities or living with lone parents or in families in which someone has a disability.

We have heard much today about the responsibility that lies with Westminster. Yesterday’s spring statement failed to provide for those who are struggling the most, and the choices that the Conservative Government is making are exacerbating the cost of living crisis. However, both Governments need to do more to prevent poverty and to enable families and individuals who are living in poverty to get out.

The SNP argues for more powers, but it needs to use every lever that it currently has available to fight poverty and support the children and families who are in need across the country. The SNP’s own growth commission exposed the poverty that would come from the economics of independence, for which I have heard many SNP members try to argue today.

The Scottish Government needs to do more. It has powers over housing, local government, health, tax and social security, yet it is failing to take the policy decisions that are needed and failing to meet its own targets. The policies that it has put in place are widely expected to fall short, which will mean failing to meet an interim target that would itself mean that 18 per cent of children were still living in poverty. The Scottish Government now projects that around 17 per cent of children will be in relative poverty by that point, based on optimistic assumptions. However, even if that is the case, we should be saddened by that figure, not proud of it.

Poverty is a stubborn issue to address, but when we have seen so little progress over a period of years, we need to reflect on where and how money is being spent and whether we have the right balance between universal support and more targeted measures. We need an evidence-based and inclusive approach to ensure that support is getting to those who are most at risk. The establishment of a child poverty commission would focus action to look at all aspects of devolved policy and design a route map to not just reduce but end child poverty.

The Scottish child payment is a positive step. It will get money directly to families on low incomes, and it must be rolled out as soon as possible. However, it will not stretch far enough and must be further increased. A payment of £25 a week pales in comparison to the increases in food and heating bills that families are facing.

We must ensure that every family is able to access all the benefits to which they are entitled, and that the Scottish welfare fund is expanded to ensure that there is a stronger safety net for those who are facing financial emergencies. We also want better routes to secure and quality employment for parents. People who are in low-paid, insecure work are too often battling rising household costs while juggling caring responsibilities.

The pandemic has shown us that, for many, it would not take much to change their lives. A loss of wages, a hike in rent or an unexpected bill could be all that it would take to make it harder for those people to get by. We cannot let so many Scots continue to live like that. We cannot continue to have Scotland be a place where half of our children will experience poverty. We all want to live in a society that supports our children to be the best that they can be, but we need to do much more to make that a reality.

16:59  

I thank the cabinet secretary for her statement and the launch of the next phase of our tackling child poverty delivery plan. It is absolutely correct that eradicating child poverty should be a national mission of our Government. The way in which we want to see our children treated will define us as a country.

The measures contained in the plan are very welcome. Our approach rightly shows that, to end child poverty, we need a multi-agency approach, with all parts of society signing up to that national mission. There can be no more important issue for the Parliament to debate than the welfare of our nation’s children. We must be resolute in our determination to act to remove all barriers and see our young people thrive.

There is much to be done and we should work collectively and take an honest and realistic approach when considering how to get to our stated destination. That honesty should call out all the obstacles and avoid kite-flying and political opportunism. If we are all signed up to the national endeavour, we need cross-party consensus on how to deliver on that mission. In that spirit, we must recognise what has been achieved already. We also need to recognise that the challenge is made even greater by the cost of living crisis.

Our Government and this Parliament must do everything within the powers that we have to eradicate child poverty, and we have seen some very welcome progress in that regard. When other political parties were calling for a Scottish child payment of £5, the Scottish Government instead introduced a payment of £10. Recognising the scale of the challenge, we accelerated our plans to increase the payment to £20 per week. It will now be £25, which is five times more than the amount that other parties suggested.

Will the member take an intervention?

I will if it is brief and I will get the time back.

You will.

What would the member do about and say to the 150,000 children on bridging payments who do not get the double amount of the Scottish child payment?

I thank the member for her intervention, but I will not take any lessons from a representative of a party that backed the cap on welfare spending.

The Child Poverty Action Group said that the Scottish child payment

“is a real lifeline for families across Scotland who are facing a perfect storm of financial insecurity as the UK cut to universal credit bites, energy prices soar and the wider costs of living rise.”

I welcome the fact that almost £6 billion has been invested to support low-income households across Scotland over the past three years. I also welcome the announcement that, subject to parliamentary approval, eight of our Scottish social security benefits will be increased by 6 per cent from 1 April, which is very significant. That contrasts with a 3.1 per cent increase for Department for Work and Pensions benefits. In the context of child poverty, it is deeply concerning that we cannot apply the 6 per cent increase to disability benefits, when we know that disability is a major driver of poverty. When I questioned the Minister for Social Security and Local Government at last week’s meeting of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, I warmly welcomed his call for the Westminster Government to do the right thing and mirror our higher uprating.

Scotland remains the only part of the UK to have five family benefits, including the Scottish child payment, that were designed to tackle child poverty head on. The Scottish child payment, combined with the three best start grants and best start foods, means that low-income families can receive more than £10,000 of financial support by the time their first child turns six and more than £9,700 for each subsequent child. That is £8,200 more than the support that is available in England and Wales—and for every eligible child; there is no two-child policy here, with its abhorrent rape clause.

I have long campaigned against the benefit cap and I welcome the cabinet secretary’s plan for mitigation. In an honest better together world, we need to compare our approach with that of the Westminster Government. The Office for Budget Responsibility, which was set up by the Tories, has stated that the current standard of living crisis is the biggest fall in living standards since records began.

The statement made by the chancellor yesterday was a chance to provide necessary support; it was also a chance for him to join us in making the eradication of child poverty a national mission. Instead, he ignored the calls to reinstate the £20 uplift to universal credit even though its removal was estimated to be responsible for placing 20,000 children in poverty and described as the biggest cut to benefits since the welfare state was established.

The chancellor has refused to mirror our uprating level of 6 per cent for DWP benefits, even for child benefit, at a time when we are increasing the Scottish child payment; he has maintained the five-week waiting time for universal credit and the two-child policy with its abhorrent rape clause—which is absolutely disgusting; and there has been no uprating to the benefit cap, which denies families with children the basic level of subsistence that they should get in a safety-net social security system. The Resolution Foundation has pointed out that £2 in every £3 of new support goes to the top half.

Let us get real and not deny that UK policies are holding us back. The misery that those policies are inflicting is real and they are a significant barrier to eradicating child poverty. They cause misery and hardship and hold our communities back.

I pause to praise the outstanding work of advice agencies, food banks, council staff, health and social care partnership staff, housing associations and all the volunteers and caring communities in my constituency. They are there, day in and day out, supporting those in need. They are, quite simply, life savers.

Let us get behind the delivery plan and call for the powers—the full levers—that will allow us to eradicate child poverty, as it is clear that the Westminster Government does not have the same ambition to end that misery. Let that not get in the way of what we need to do to help our nation’s children thrive.

We now move to closing speeches. I call Martin Whitfield, who has around six minutes.

17:05  

It is a pleasure to close the debate on behalf of Labour.

In her statement, the cabinet secretary was right to say that we are too often blunted in our potential to tackle inequality and poverty. She was right, too, to say that there is no silver bullet when it comes to tackling poverty and that, if there were, poverty would not be a problem. However, we need to take great care not to end up in slogan cul-de-sacs when we are talking about individual children.

I extend my thanks to the Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland, whose members came to me early on and talked about the challenge that they face when they do not get multiyear funding. It is a great pleasure to see in the plan the proposal for multiyear funding to give the third sector the support that it needs and to give families on-going support. The plan uses the phrase

“where possible to do so”.

It would be helpful if the Deputy First Minister could tell us whether multiyear funding will be available to the third sector as soon as possible, because I know that it needs it very much.

I would like to explore one aspect of the cabinet secretary’s statement in relation to “Every child, every chance: tackling child poverty delivery plan 2018-2022”, which is the original plan that the new plan takes further. She talked about investment under that plan of £5.9 billion in support of low-income households, of which £2.18 billion was estimated to have directly benefited children. It would be useful to know how the remaining £3.72 billion helped to lift children out of poverty.

Given my brief with regard to young people, I will take a couple of minutes to consider education and learning.

Poverty affects our children hugely. The plan rightly points out that we need

“to use education to improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty with a focus on tackling the poverty related attainment gap.”

Children who are hungry cannot learn; children who are cold cannot learn; and children who come from households in which there are parental stresses because of money are not in a position to learn.

Last week, I spoke with a teacher who told me that a young girl had come to the high school with no soles on her shoes—she had walked in with just the covering. The school’s staff did what they have done especially well during the Covid pandemic: they stepped up. They burrowed around and found a pair of shoes. This is 2022. We are expecting children to sit exams in only a few weeks, yet they do not have shoes on their feet.

Where is the baseline assessment of the damage done in the past two years, as a result of Covid, to children and young people going through education? Such an assessment would allow us to consider how to make improvements; to prepare, should anything as abhorrent happen to us again; and to consider how to help that Covid generation get on with their lives with the dignity and respect that they deserve.

I would like to see the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child come back to Parliament, so that young people can hold to account the politicians—from all parties—who say brave words, speak loudly and do nothing.

I will be careful in doing so, but I wish to address a point that arose during Pam Duncan-Glancy’s speech. She talked about the benefit cap and discussed the very welcome £10 million in the new plan for its mitigation. If we look at the universal credit dashboard, we see that, as of August 2021, 6,400 households were subject to the benefit cap in Scotland. At an average £208 per month, that would be just under £16 million, yet the offer is £10 million.

The figures are based on the uprated DWP figures, which are the latest projections. It is £10 million plus £3 million that local authorities have already put in, which makes a total of £13 million. [Shona Robison has corrected this contribution. See end of report.]

I am grateful for that intervention and to get that on to the record. We can look to that in the future.

I will pick up on another of Pam Duncan-Glancy’s comments, which goes back to my comment about slogans. I am concerned about the “small number” of pathfinder areas that are discussed in the report and about the

“work with up to 300 people in 2022-23”.

There are young people in our communities who are hungry now. Can we not raise our ambition from having a small number of pathfinders to having a pathfinding project that can help all young people who are in poverty? Rather than working with 300 people, can we not increase that number?

The increase in benefits is welcome. However, I note the Save the Children briefing, which I am sure many members in the chamber have received and which says:

“Tackling the structural drivers of poverty is critical. Save the Children supports a cash-first approach”.

That point has been echoed by a number of members in the debate. The briefing continues:

“The most impactful action that can be taken is to double the Scottish Child Payment to £40 as soon as possible.”

That would lift children out of poverty by putting cash where cash is needed.

In response to Miles Briggs’s speech, I note that, if we hit local government, we are hitting the vehicle that works most closely with these people.

I thank Elena Whitham for, and congratulate her on, sharing her life experience of being in poverty.

Members across the chamber all want the same outcome, and we can raise our ambition to achieve it. However, as the cabinet secretary said in her statement, there is no doubt that—here I make an amendment—this Government could and should have done so much more.

17:12  

I welcome the opportunity to make the closing speech for the Scottish Conservatives. I acknowledge the publication of the tackling child poverty delivery plan for 2022 to 2026, and I reiterate the comments of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that the upcoming plans must set out a clear and measurable course for meeting poverty targets by April 2024.

Although I welcome the cabinet secretary’s announcement today, the SNP has now been in power for 15 years. During that time, we have witnessed increased levels of child poverty, despite the many devolved powers that this Scottish Government could use to reduce poverty.

Will Meghan Gallacher take an intervention?

No, thank you. I would like to make progress. [Interruption.] I have just started my speech. I will take an intervention later on.

The recent “Tackling Child Poverty and Destitution” report, which was written by the Institute of Public Policy Research think tank, estimated that, by 2030, 13 per cent of children will still be living in relative poverty, which is 3 per cent off the SNP’s target of 10 per cent. It is not good enough that the SNP Government could miss its own targets on child poverty; it must do more to tackle the root causes to ensure that everyone, regardless of their background, is given the opportunity to succeed.

As highlighted by the cabinet secretary today, this is not the first child poverty delivery plan that the SNP Government has announced. The 2018-2022 delivery plan outlined actions such as boosting employment, expanding social security and tackling the cost of living. Although some actions have been achieved, other programmes such as the fair start Scotland scheme managed to achieve only a 25 per cent success rate.

Alongside education, employment is one of the best routes out of poverty. That view is backed by the Poverty and Inequality Commission, which has urged the SNP to reduce barriers to employment in order to tackle child poverty directly by, for example, increasing funding for the parental employability support fund and introducing a job guarantee for priority families. Those measures would reduce the number of children living in poverty who are in working households.

The SNP has the powers to do more to address in-work poverty. I hope that the tackling child poverty delivery plan will contain successful schemes that will support more people than its predecessor plan.

Many colleagues from all parties have made important points during the debate. Miles Briggs mentioned that more than 7,500 children are living in temporary accommodation. SNP-Green ministers are failing to provide the leadership that is necessary to address the housing crisis and get families and children into safe, secure and affordable homes as a matter of priority.

After 15 years of the SNP Government, we see no plan and no end to children living in temporary accommodation. As Miles Briggs rightly said, by not reaching out to other parties, except the Greens, the Government could have missed opportunities to work collegiately with all the parties.

Pam Duncan-Glancy critiqued the Scottish Government’s plans, and she called for concrete plans and resolutions to tackle the cost of living and child poverty. Again, the Government could have reached out to all parties, and I am left wondering what could have been announced today as part of the delivery plan if that had been the case.

Beatrice Wishart spoke about providing opportunities for our young people and families, and measures that could have been taken to improve their wellbeing. I agree with her criticisms of the Scottish Government’s decision to cut local government funding by £250 million. I will speak more about that later.

A number of SNP members mentioned that, if Scotland separated from the rest of the UK, it would give the Government more powers to tackle child poverty. My colleague Dean Lockhart reminded members that it was the SNP Government that rejected and delayed additional welfare powers that would have given the Scottish Parliament the opportunity to look at alternatives for Scotland, should it have wanted to.

Will the member give way?

No. I would like to make progress, thank you.

I do not want to turn the debate into a constitutional squabble, but—[Interruption.] There is a but. But how can the SNP Government be serious about independence when it does not use the powers that are available to it? [Interruption.] Today’s debate should have focused on—SNP members have not focused on this entirely—reducing child poverty in Scotland, not on the SNP’s political obsessions.

During his contribution, my colleague Alexander Stewart raised an important issue about childcare provision, which is one of the many ways in which the Government could help children and families to get out of poverty. Delivering 1,140 hours of free childcare provision received cross-party support and, as a councillor, I welcomed that in my local authority area of North Lanarkshire, which has high levels of deprivation. The provision of free childcare gives our young people the best start in life and supports parents so that they can work and provide for their families without that additional childcare cost. It also supports the getting it right for every child model, a principle that is also widely supported.

However, as I have said in the chamber previously, there are deep-rooted issues with the delivery of 1,140 hours. I once again call on the Scottish Government to listen to the private and voluntary industry, which has warned that the current funding model will force nurseries to close or reduce their hours. If the Government does not act now, a crisis could emerge in our nursery sector that could leave its flagship policy in ruins.

I am conscious of time, but I want to stay on the subject of education. The SNP Government must do more to close the attainment gap and provide our young people with the tools to succeed. As other members have mentioned, Audit Scotland’s “Improving outcomes for young people through school education” report outlines that the attainment gap remains wide and that improvements are needed to close it more quickly. If the SNP continues with its abysmal record on education, closing the attainment gap will be unachievable, and the Government’s failure will leave many young people in poverty.

For my final point, I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests as I am a serving councillor in North Lanarkshire, because I want to talk about the cuts to local government funding and the pressures that local authorities face to deliver for communities, especially those that are in the greatest need of support. Tackling child poverty is a key part of the work of our councils, and it is made difficult when the Scottish Government chooses to cut the budget year on year.

Will the member give way?

I am in my final minute. Presiding Officer, I am happy to give way if I can have the time back.

You will get the time back.

I thank the member for giving way so enthusiastically. Is the member therefore arguing that we should have given more to local government in recent years and less to the NHS?

I did not realise that it was one or the other. The Scottish Government should be fiscally responsible, but it certainly has not been. We have seen that during the discussions about the ferry fiasco in recent days.—[Interruption.]

The reason that I wish to raise the cuts to local government, and the pressures that they face to deliver for our local communities—[Interruption.]

Could back benchers who have not been in the chamber for much of the debate stop having a conversation at the back of the room while those on the front benches are speaking?

Councils know their communities. If they were funded properly by the SNP Government, they would be able to implement plans to support areas of high deprivation. Therefore, the Scottish Government must work alongside local government to continue to identify areas that have high rates of household worklessness and to target an action plan at reversing those trends. Councils will not be able to do that unless they receive a fair level of funding. If the Government is serious about eradicating poverty, it must fund local councils properly so that they can provide much-needed support to those who need it most.

Today, we have heard many views about how we can tackle child poverty. One goal that we all have in common is that we want to tackle the root causes of child poverty, so I hope that the Scottish Government listens to the concerns that have been outlined by Opposition members today and that it will implement measures that will support children and families across the whole of Scotland.

I call John Swinney to wind up the debate. Take us up to around 5.30, please, Deputy First Minister.

17:21  

Thank you, Presiding Officer.

One point that Miles Briggs got correct—there was not much that he got correct—was that the national mission on child poverty is a cross-Government priority in the Scottish Government. My presence in closing the debate is designed to reinforce that point and to support and endorse the excellent leadership that has been shown in formulation of the delivery plan by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government, Shona Robison. She has worked extraordinarily hard, with her officials, to engage with a wide range of stakeholders, with parliamentary committees and with our partners in the Green Party to formulate the policy programme that is before Parliament.

For it to be a cross-Government strategy, it must be balanced across a range of relevant factors that will make a sustainable difference to eradicating child poverty once and for all, which Meghan Gallacher talked about. The measures that we take must be sustainable across the whole policy spectrum.

The strategy covers a range of measures, including enhancement of social security measures—on which the Government has already taken action, as Marie McNair pointed out. We responded to the calls for a child payment. Originally, that payment was to be £5. After saying that it would be £10, we doubled it to £20, and it has now gone up to £25, which is five times the original amount that was asked of the Government.

We have used our social security powers to effect other such changes. Just this week, the Minister for Social Security and Local Government announced a 6 per cent increase in the benefits that are under our control. Today, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government has announced—as a consequence of the dialogue that we have had with the Green Party on the plan—the steps that will be taken to mitigate the effects of the benefit cap, which will have a huge impact on child poverty in individual families. That is the first element of the three-pronged strategy.

The second element is tackling the costs that families are having to endure. We have set out a range of measures, including our steps on council tax, the work that has been done on the renters strategy—which Maggie Chapman mentioned—and the work that Ruth Maguire talked about in relation to income maximisation in order that families can tackle the cost of living and to ensure sustainability of our interventions.

What can the Deputy First Minister say to the 177,000 children who are eligible for the Scottish child payment, but who do not currently receive it?

The Government is acting as swiftly as it can to put in place the Scottish child payment measures that will have an effect on children in Scotland. We are moving at pace to achieve that, and the steps that we have announced today demonstrate the substance of the Government’s endeavours.

The third element of the strategy is about employability support. With the increased resources that we have set out, there is a focus on additional support for early learning and childcare and for transportation costs.

Other flexible funds have been made available to our partners in local government—I will come on to its funding in a moment—to assist 12,000 people into employment. Long-term employability is crucial to tackling child poverty. Getting individuals into long-term sustained employment can be of benefit.

Many children live with adults who have disabilities. What is the Scottish Government doing to ensure that the disability employment gap is tackled? That is a major issue for many households.

We do that through the employability support that we have in place and through measures that are already being implemented by the Minister for Social Security and Local Government to strengthen the position of people who have disabilities.

The strategy covers these three areas: social security, tackling the cost of living and employability support. The most charitable that I can be about the Opposition’s reaction to the plan is to call it somewhat grudging.

Will the minister take an intervention?

I will not, at the moment.

There was a contrast between comments that were made by the Opposition and the speech by Elena Whitham. Her contribution was the most powerful lived testimony and was in stark contrast to the political posturing that we heard from the Opposition.

My colleague Ruth Maguire made a comment about the context in which we are operating. That context is crucial in determining the extent to which we can be successful in tackling child poverty. What she said was in contrast with the announcements that were made in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s statement yesterday, as was the case with a number of other members. Graham Simpson—a Conservative—went on television last night and gave an interview in which he said of the chancellor:

“I think he should have looked at doing something on benefits because we should be looking at the least well off in society. They’re going to be the worst hit.”

Not one single Conservative member has reiterated those comments in the debate. Instead, they cast a veil over the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer walked on the other side of the road yesterday and did not do a thing to help people on low incomes.

Alexander Stewart made a comment about the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom being deployed to support people. The Daily Telegraph, one of the two house journals of the Conservative Party, said in its headline this morning that the chancellor’s announcement represents “The biggest fall in living standards on record”. The other house journal of the Conservative Party, The Daily Express, had the headline, “The Forgotten Millions Say: What About Us?” That is a question that the Conservatives should be confronting, as their spokesman did on television last night, not one that they should be avoiding.

We can look at the path of child poverty. It was falling until 2010, but then something happened. There was a change of Government in the United Kingdom and the Conservatives and Liberals conspired to inflict austerity on the public. What happened? Relative poverty in this country increased. We have been battling that tide. No member should be mistaken about this Government’s determination to do everything that we can, within our powers, to address that situation.

Mr Swinney mentioned austerity. Does he agree with the conclusion of the SNP’s very own Sustainable Growth Commission that spending on benefits would have to be reduced by 4 per cent of gross domestic product in an independent Scotland? That is its conclusion, not mine

The Scottish Government is determined to use the powers that we have at our disposal—as we have just done in uprating benefits—to tackle the crisis in living standards that people face, but the Conservatives have not lifted a finger to help people one iota, in that effort.

I said that I would come back to the subject of local government. That is because the Conservatives, after all their years of austerity, have dressed themselves up as the protectors of local government. Let me put a couple of facts on the record. In the budget for the forthcoming financial year, there is a 9.2 per cent cash increase in the local government budget, which is a 6.3 per cent real-terms increase. We are funding local government—our partners—to deliver the actions on child poverty that we are determined to take, through the plan.

My last comment is this: some members really need to keep up with the events of the afternoon. We have had a host of quotations read out in the debate on the points of view of commentators and stakeholders. Well, in the course of this afternoon, the Child Poverty Action Group, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Save the Children, the Poverty and Inequality Commission, the Independent Food Aid Network, the Trussell Trust, the Poverty Alliance, Barnardo’s Scotland, and the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland have all welcomed the steps that the cabinet secretary announced this afternoon and have said that they are in stark contrast with the walking on the other side of the road by the UK Government yesterday.

That concludes the debate on the tackling child poverty delivery plan 2022-26.