Drop in child poverty in Scotland since targets introduced
The magazine said its study highlighted why Westminster should implement similar poverty reduction targets.
Its analysis of UK child poverty statistics found that the assent of the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 was a 'parting of the ways' for the different home nations' trajectories on child poverty.
The report said a cyclical target-setting method would translate Labour's stated ambition of 'enduring poverty reduction' into concrete, measurable steps.
Lord John Bird, Big Issue founder and crossbench peer, said: 'With child poverty in England and Wales predicted to rise to new pernicious highs, we cannot accept rhetoric in place of real change – we must demand sustained, legislative action.
'Parliamentarians possess the authority to drive this transformation. Let us not look back and regret another missed opportunity. The time has come to stop simply managing poverty and to begin ending it.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
STV News
10 minutes ago
- STV News
Councillor who groomed and sexually abused teenage girl to be sentenced
A Fife councillor will be sentenced on Tuesday after being found guilty of sexual offences against a teenage girl over seven months in 2023. David Graham, who was suspended from the Labour Party two years ago, was convicted last month following a trial at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court. According to the indictment the offences involved sexual activity with a girl aged between 13 and 15. The offences took place between February 11 and August 21, 2023, and were committed at a variety of locations in the Fife and Edinburgh areas. The 43-year-old was found guilty by a majority of one charge under the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009. Commenting after Graham's conviction, Fife Council leader David Ross said the revelations at the trial had been 'truly shocking'. The Labour councillor went on: 'This is appalling behaviour by anyone, let alone an elected councillor – and the sentence will reflect the seriousness of this case. Our sympathies go out to the young person involved. 'It is impossible to express how badly David Graham has let down his colleagues and the people he was elected to represent.' A Labour Party spokesperson said: 'The party is taking immediate action to exclude David Graham from membership of the Labour Party following his conviction.' Police Scotland detective inspector Graham Watson said: 'Graham is a manipulative individual who groomed and sexually abused his teenage victim. 'He was well-known and in a position of power when the offending took place. 'I would like to thank the female for her assistance in bringing him to justice. 'We remain committed to investigating all reports of sexual crime and would encourage anyone affected to report it. 'Every report is taken seriously and will be fully investigated, no matter how much time has passed, with support from our specially trained officers and partner agencies.' Get all the latest news from around the country Follow STV News Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
Daily Mail
41 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Government confirms Plug-In Van Grant extension - how much can white van man save by going electric?
The Government's discounts for electric vans and trucks has been extended for business and fleet operators looking to transition to EVs. The Plug-In Van and Truck Grant extension arrives as part of Labour's £650million scheme to make it cheaper to buy EVs, which has also seen the introduction of the controversial Electric Car Grant. The grant, which already offer discounts of up to £2,500 for small vans, £5,000 for large vans, £16,000 for small trucks, and £25,000 for large trucks, were due to lapse but have been confirmed to remain until at least another two years. The Government says the exact levels for the 2026/27 financial year will be confirmed in due course. The electric van grants run alongside electric Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) grants. The Government's decision comes after UK battery-electric van registrations rose sharply in July, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), with a 72.6 per cent increase between July 2024 and 2025. However, electric vans account for just 8.8 per cent of total registrations in the year to date - well short of the 16 per cent required under rules imposed by the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate. Announcing the van and truck grant, Future of Roads Minister Lilian Greenwood said: 'Extending these grants is another decisive step to power Britain's transition to cleaner transport while backing the industries that keep our economy moving, driving new investment in EVs and helping businesses cut costs and expand.' Off the back of July's SMMT data, the industry body said that the gap between the government-mandated sales targets and current uptake needs to be addressed and called for 'measures to boost operator confidence'. The 2026 market share for electric vans is projected at 13.7 per cent, which is well below the mandated target of 24 per cent. SMMT chief Mike Hawes said the extension of the grant will 'help increase zero emission uptake in the critical commercial vehicle sector, much of which faces the same end of sale date as the car market' but added that more measures were required to have a telling impaxted. 'One of the major barriers to adoption is affordability so this extension will reduce the initial cost of purchase which, together with the accelerated rollout of infrastructure, will help more operators make the switch,' he said. 'The next step must be more affordable energy so government can maximise the return on investment for both the environment and the economy.' Commercial transport is responsible for more than a third of CO2 emissions on UK roads, so it's seen as vital to reduce the emissions from vans and trucks. Vans are responsible for 16 per cent of road transport emissions. HGVs, a category including trucks, make up 19 per cent of domestic transport emissions. John Boumphrey, UK country manager at Amazon, said: 'We welcome the government's continued commitment to supporting the electrification of commercial fleets.' The EV van grant is being better received than the new Electric Car Grant that sees buyers of electric cars received either a £1,500 (lower band) or £3,750 (higher band) discount on certain 'sustainable' EV models. The Government's criteria for which manufacturers and models qualify as 'green' has left car makers and buyers scratching their heads, and the the way the Government is announcing models as fast as it can process applications, rather than just releasing one clear list, is attracting a lot of criticism. As of the 16 August when the most recent ECG qualifiers were announced - five models from Cupra, Volkswagen and Peugeot - no EVs have managed to pass the stringent Level 1 £3,750 grant. As such, dealers have reportedly been voicing the frustrations, dubbing the roll-out of the scheme 'shambolic', adding that it should have been far simpler than what he dubbed a 'typical government bureaucratic mess'.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
The Labour right wants Wes Streeting in No 10. Why? What does he really stand for?
Just over a year after Keir Starmer entered Downing Street, his political survival already looks uncertain. Perennially indecisive, unpopular with the public and unable to pass major legislation without rebellions, the prime minister has reportedly been put 'on notice' by senior figures within his party. Speculation about a potential successor is mounting. What would Labour's dominant faction – the neo-Blairite right – look for in a candidate? Their best bet would be an effective operator who doesn't carry too much political baggage, a decent communicator, free of Starmer's stumbling reticence, and a committed partisan of their cause: namely the free market and a strong state. They need someone who will go on the offensive for these values, rather than offering the bland apologetics that we have seen from the incumbent. Few fit the bill better than the health secretary, Wes Streeting, who has made no secret of his ambition to lead the country and appears to have spent years laying the groundwork with media rounds, donor events and backroom conversations. When Starmer's leadership of the Labour party was on the brink during the Beergate scandal, Peter Mandelson is said to have canvassed the Labour frontbench to anoint Streeting. 'In the longer term,' briefed one party source, 'Wes is their guy, not Keir.' Born into a working-class east London family in 1983, Streeting has been fairly consistent in both his political style and outlook since he was in his early 20s. A pugnacious advocate of private enterprise, and an effective behind-the-scenes operator, his deft handling of the press allows him to stride into the limelight at crucial moments, with memorable one-liners that seem crafted to enrage his opponents. As president of the National Union of Students (NUS) in the twilight of the New Labour era, he inveighed against lecturers' strikes, remarking that 'students need industrial action by university staff like a hole in the head'. He also broke with dominant student opinion by supporting tuition fees and criticising Palestine solidarity protests. From the NUS it was only a small step to parliament, where Streeting landed in 2015. The words 'future leader' were immediately 'appended to his name like a Homeric epithet', according to one insider account. He vigorously opposed the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, repeatedly excoriating him in parliamentary meetings and working with the People's Vote campaign to chip away at his resistance to a second Brexit referendum. This earned him a place in Starmer's shadow cabinet once the right had regained control five years later. There, he made no bones about accepting hundreds of thousands of pounds from donors linked to the private healthcare industry. He insisted that the party needed to get tough on 'law and order' along with 'defence and national security'; and he signalled a clear shift from the foreign policy of the Corbyn era by visiting Israel and meeting with ministers in its government. Now that Streeting is at the helm of the NHS, we are beginning to see how his hypothetical prime ministership might play out. Shortly after the last general election, he sketched out his vision for the health service in the pages of the Sun, writing that 'major surgery' was needed to make it 'fit for the future': moving treatment out of hospitals, so as to focus on local care and prevention. This could not be achieved through public spending, Streeting warned, because 'the money isn't there'. It could only be done through hard-knuckled 'reform'. True to his word, Streeting has helped to normalise the state of perma-austerity at the health department, which will receive only an extra 2.8% annually in real terms over the coming years: less than the long-term historical norm of 3.7%, and far below the average increase of 6.8% under New Labour. This is nowhere near enough to solve the perpetual crisis in the sector, let alone make any real improvements in the quality of care. Without meaningful investment, the levers that Streeting can pull to realise his goals are limited. There is reorganisation through measures such as the summary abolition of NHS England and mass job cuts. There is techno-optimism, allowing AI companies such as Palantir to run parts of the ailing service. And, most importantly, there is privatisation. Streeting has been working hard to ensure that 'more treatments can be delivered through the independent sector', as an official briefing put it. Under his watch, an even greater portion of the NHS – including, potentially, sensitive patient data – is being handed over to profit-making companies. His plan to set up 300 'neighbourhood health hubs' is powered by corporate finance, in what is shaping up to be a frame-by-frame replay of the disastrous PFI initiatives of the 2000s. Research shows that the effect of these policies is to worsen health inequality. But this does not seem to concern the minister. Bullish as ever, Streeting has said he is 'up for the fight' that his plan will provoke. And that is what he now has. In recent weeks, resident doctors rejected his notion that 'reform' alone will magically resolve the service's deep-rooted problems of under-resourcing and understaffing. They refused to accept a pay deal that would amount to a 21% reduction in their salaries since 2008, and instead made a principled case for wage restoration. Streeting was intransigent. During the resulting five-day strike he launched a series of broadsides against the workers, insisting that they must feel the 'pain' of the walkouts and vowing that they would 'lose a war with this government'. Much like his 'bullet in the head' rhetoric, the remarks showed that Streeting's main interest is in positioning himself as a crusader on behalf of the establishment rather than fixing the service he oversees. He is also keenly aware of the populist appeal of his rhetoric at a time when support for the doctors' struggle is in decline. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion The other front on which Streeting has been fighting is the culture war. He has imposed a permanent ban on puberty blockers for trans children – despite a wealth of dissenting expert opinion including that of the British Medical Association, which disputes the scientific basis of the prohibition – and he has also barred those under 18 from changing gender markers on their NHS records, potentially making it more difficult for them to access vital services. The irony, of course, is that while Streeting styles himself as the man to beat Nigel Farage, his politics is one of deference to big business, clampdowns on trans rights and incendiary rhetoric to provoke the left. These features are more typically associated with reactionary populism than with social democracy. Streeting's ascent reflects the fact that, in today's Labour party, the former is cannibalising the latter. Oliver Eagleton is an associate editor at the New Left Review and author of The Starmer Project: A Journey to the Right
