Why you won't hear about child poverty improving in Scotland

The National

25-06-2025

A study carried out by The Big Issue magazine reports that the incidence of child poverty in Scotland has dropped by 12% since the Scottish Government introduced reduction targets into law in 2017. This is equivalent to 21,000 children who are no longer living in poverty.
However, over the same time period, the incidence of child poverty in England and in Labour-run Wales increased by 15%. The magazine writes that England and Wales must follow the lead of Scotland and set legal targets to reduce child poverty.
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An analysis of UK child poverty statistics which was conducted alongside the publication of a new Big Issue report, highlights the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017, which introduced statutory targets for reducing child poverty, as marking a divergence in the trajectories of the issue of child poverty in the various nations of the UK. Since the passing of the Act in Scotland, there has been a 27% divergence in the incidence of child poverty between Scotland on the one hand and England and Wales on the other.
The Scottish government's landmark act, which received royal assent and passed into law in December 2017, was the cause of the start of a significant divergence in child poverty levels between the home nations. Before 2018, Scotland had seen similar rises in relative child poverty to England and Wales.
Child poverty in Scotland rose by 19% between 2015 and 2018, only marginally slower than England and Wales at 23%. The Big Issue is calling on the UK Government to introduce similar statutory targets for reducing child poverty in England and Wales, citing Scotland as an example of how significant progress can be made.
(Image: PA)
The rise of poverty in the UK over recent decades is a shameful story of government failure and the capitulation of the British government to the interests of the wealthy. Currently in the UK, 3.8 million people are living in destitution, the most extreme form of poverty. This is defined as when people struggle to keep themselves warm, clean, fed, and clothed. Shockingly, this number is rising markedly; destitution has more than doubled in the UK over the last 7 years.
Meanwhile, income inequality has grown more rapidly in the UK than in other developed economies. The UK is now the ninth most unequal economy out of the 38 OECD countries. Wealth inequality in the UK is far worse than income inequality, figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the top fifth of the population take 36% of the UK's income and hold 63% of its wealth, while the bottom fifth of the population have only 8% of the income and a mere 0.5% of the wealth.
It is categorically not that there is no money to tackle poverty, it's that the rich are jealously hoarding it like a dragon curled up on a pile of gold and jewels, and governments are full of politicians who are in effect clients of the dragons, bought and paid for with political donations.
(Image: PA)
Scotland's government lacks the full powers of an independent state, but even with the limited economic levers at its disposal, the Scottish Government has achieved a remarkable success in reducing the incidence of child poverty in Scotland. As part of the UK, Scotland is subject to the economic constraints imposed upon it by the government in Westminster, but has still managed to reduce child poverty in Scotland. What this proves is that the rise in child poverty in the rest of the UK is a political choice, a damning political choice which tells us that Westminster is morally bankrupt.
A report on the findings of the latest British Social Attitudes survey has laid bare the disconnection between the Labour government, the main British political parties and what people actually want. This disconnection is starkest when it comes to the issue of Brexit. A large majority of people in the UK, 63%, would support rejoining the EU if the issue was put to them in a referendum. This figure is even higher in Scotland where some polls have put the figure at 70%.
Most of those who voted Labour in last year's Westminster general election supported rejoining the EU. Yet despite this Labour doggedly doubles down on Theresa May's red lines and refuses to countenance even rejoining the European single market and customs union.
Meanwhile, new polling from YouGov finds that voters who have deserted Labour since last year's general election are much more likely to vote Green or Lib Dems, than Reform. Green and Lib Dem defectors are also much more likely to consider switching back to Labour than Reform voters who overwhelmingly say they're committed to Farage's party.
But Starmer continues in his quixotic and damaging pursuit of Reform UK, adopting policies which ramp up the performative cruelty against migrants and asylum seekers and throwing the LGBT community under the bus.
Today, Labour government figures are still insisting that they intend to follow through on their deeply damaging cuts to benefits payments to the disabled, some of the most vulnerable in society, in the face of a growing rebellion amongst its own backbenchers. Yesterday 108 Labour MPs had signed an amendment to the government's bill, which would effectively kill it.
In response, the government reportedly called Labour MPs to tell them that the vote would effectively be a vote of confidence in Keir Starmer, whereupon the number of Labour MPs who signed the amendment rose to 120. It is believed senior cabinet ministers, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Health Secretary Wes Streeting, called MPs who had signed the amendment to try to convince them to vote with the government, with very little success. Never mind being a government that is disconnected from its voters, Starmer's government is disconnected from its own MPs.
Pressure is also growing on Anas Sarwar, who had expressed his support for the cuts, after a tenth Labour MP representing a Scottish constituency signed the amendment opposing the cuts.
Glasgow North East MP Maureen Burke added her name to the amendment yesterday, joining fellow Labour MPs Patricia Ferguson, Brian Leishman, Tracy Gilbert, Scott Arthur, Richard Baker, Lilian Jones, Elaine Stewart, Kirsteen Sullivan, and Euan Stainbank.