Question reference: S4W-13033
- Asked by: Jamie Hepburn, MSP for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 8 February 2013
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Current status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 5 March 2013
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what estimate it has made of the number of children in Scotland who will be deemed to be in poverty as a result of changes in welfare benefits since 2010.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not produce forecasts of poverty, however analysis published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in October 2011 estimated that the number of children in the UK living in relative poverty will rise by approximately 700,000 between 2009-10 and 2020-21. In 2009-10 200,000 children, 20 per cent of children, were living in relative income poverty in Scotland, this was 7.7 per cent of all children in the UK living in relative income poverty. Assuming Scotland’s share of UK child poverty remains unchanged at 7.7 per cent in future years, this would imply an additional 50,000 children in Scotland will be living in relative poverty by 2020-21. This estimate does not include changes subsequently introduced by the UK Government.