Meeting of the Parliament 05 September 2024
Ending child poverty is the single greatest priority for this Government and is, I hope, a truly national mission that is supported across the chamber. I am pleased to be opening this debate as education secretary in what I hope is a demonstration of the cross-Government approach that we are taking to that mission. Ending child poverty is a job not just for me, the social justice secretary, the health secretary or any one of my colleagues; it is a mission for all of us in Government at all levels.
We undoubtedly approach that mission in what are clearly challenging circumstances. The Scottish Government’s budget is under the most severe and sustained pressure since this Parliament was reconvened in 1999. However, it is worth reminding Parliament that it is in that challenging context that we are already taking considerable action to alleviate child poverty within our current devolved powers.
We are investing around £3 billion per year in our mission to eradicate child poverty, address the cost of living crisis and break the cycle of poverty, and we know that that action is making a difference. Modelling that was published in February estimates that 100,000 children will be kept out of relative poverty this year by Scottish Government policies such as the Scottish child payment, with relative child poverty levels estimated to be 10 percentage points lower than they would otherwise have been. As Professor Morag Treanor from the University of Glasgow has observed, the Scottish child payment has been a game changer for Scotland. She noted that
“Levels of child poverty in Scotland will drop faster”
and
“further than they will in the rest of the UK, particularly England, because of this payment”.
However, there is much more that we need to do in order to fully eradicate child poverty.