Meeting of the Parliament 07 January 2025
The Government has a fully costed budget, which is available for Parliament to scrutinise and to support in February and which provides for the cost that I am talking about. The benefit of what the Scottish Government is doing with that investment is that we are helping to keep hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty as a consequence. That is an investment in economic growth and the future of our country.
I mentioned the £644 million in benefits and payments that are available only here in Scotland. Our five family payments can be worth more than £10,000 by the time that an eligible child turns six and around £25,000 by the time that an eligible child turns 16. That compares to less than £2,000 for families in England and Wales, where support ends when an eligible child turns four. Last November, Social Security Scotland announced that we have reached the milestone of paying £1 billion to support families through our five family payments. We know from speaking to those families how important that support has been to them.
From April, we will enhance that support by increasing all Scottish social security assistance by 1.7 per cent, which is in line with inflation. Our Scottish child payment will increase to £27.15 per child per week. This coming year, it is forecast to support the families of 333,000 children. In total, our investment in social security is expected to support around 2 million people in 2025-26. I want to underscore—this is my response to Liz Smith—that those payments are an investment and not a cost to be borne. They are an investment in Scotland’s people and communities and in its future.
I cannot be alone in expressing my concern about the abrupt new direction that is being set by the Labour leader in Scotland, who suggested yesterday that Labour is now committed to lowering rather than increasing that vital investment in our society. That will consign more children to living in poverty, and it is not the agenda of the Scottish Government.
I said at the start that the Government’s budget is one of delivery and hope. With it, we are setting a firm foundation for the success of our society and future generations. In the long term, we will realise the greater return on that investment. We will see it in a robust and resilient wellbeing economy that promotes economic and social equality and that decarbonises our communities.
We must make those investments today, however, if we hope to benefit from them tomorrow. That will work only if all children are supported to have the best start in life. That is why we are prioritising areas such as early years, childcare and education.
With this budget, we are continuing our investment of around £1 billion each year to deliver 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare to all eligible children. We are also providing £9.7 million in additional funding to local authorities to increase to at least the real living wage the pay of early learning and childcare workers delivering funded childcare. The budget includes additional measures to support attainment and to address the poverty-related attainment gap, with additional investment of £41 million for local authorities to protect teacher numbers and to bring the number of teachers in Scotland back to 2023 levels.
We must equip children to be successful once they are in school, so we are investing more to enable the expansion of breakfast clubs across Scotland through our bright start breakfasts fund. That will enable us to deliver thousands of new places for primary school children. We are also expanding free school meals through an investment of £37 million. We will grow the programme to cover those in receipt of the Scottish child payment in primary 6 and 7, helping to provide healthy and nutritious meals to around 25,000 more children.
We are providing a further £14.3 million to support the school clothing grant, increasing that vital support for eligible families to at least £120 for primary school pupils and £150 for secondary school pupils.
All that I have mentioned so far is key to combating child poverty. It is needed, and it is making a tremendous difference every day to children all across Scotland.