30-04-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Is the UK Government preventing Scotland from acting on child poverty?
The Scottish Government has said they want to put an end to this.
Announcing the Scottish Government budget in December, the finance secretary Shona Robison said 'be in no doubt- the cap will be scrapped' by 2026.
Scrapping it, however, comes at a significant cost.
The Scottish Fiscal Commission has said the Scottish Government's policy of mitigating the cap comes with a £155 million price tag in 2026-27 before rising to £198 million in 2029-30.
The charity Action for Children has told The Herald if this mitigation wasn't required the money could pay the majority of the £256m funding gap the Scottish Government says is stopping them from rolling out meals as a right to every primary school pupil in Scotland.
At the moment, pupils in primary 1 to primary 5 currently have access to universal free school meals.
Action for Children additional funds would allow ministers to 'add the provision of P6 to P7', leading to 'a first step in removing the stigma of receiving school meals.'
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Scottish Government statistics show school meal provision saves families around £400 a year and following a stark rise in the cost of living, the charity argues, it 'takes vital resources away from a family's budget'.
Action for Children points to other countries, such as Finland, which has made the choice to invest in school meals as a right and has consistently achieved high scores in the Programme for International Student Assessments.
In Finland, all pupils from pre-primary to upper secondary schools get a free-of-charge, nutritious meal each day.
In February, the cabinet secretary for Social Justice, Shirley-Anne Somerville, said Scottish minister's efforts to tackle child poverty are being 'undermined' by the social security policies of the UK Government, 'not least the two-child cap'.
The Child Poverty Action Group estimates that scrapping the two-child cap in Scotland could lift 15,000 children out of poverty and the Scottish Fiscal Commission estimates that 42,000 children in Scotland will benefit from mitigation of the policy in 2026-27.
However, Scottish ministers' plans to scrap the two child benefit cap by 2026 may be put on further hold if they are unable to get the first mitigation payments system up and running safely.
If the UK Government does abolish the cap, the First Minister has said the money spent on mitigating this policy will 'continue to be used on measures to eradicate child poverty in Scotland.'
Yet, recent reports suggest the cap will remain in place even when the UK Government announces their child poverty strategy in June.
This month, one Labour source told The Guardian: 'If they still think we're going to scrap the cap then they're listening to the wrong people. We're simply not going to find a way to do that. The cap is popular with key voters, who see it as a matter of fairness.'
This comes despite the Child Poverty Action Group estimating the number of children in poverty across the UK would increase from 4.5m to 4.8m by 2029 unless urgent action is taken.
The UK Government has said it is creating a new Fair Repayment Rate, which caps debt repayments made in Universal Credit, which it claims will allow 1.2m households to keep more of their Universal Credit award.
UK ministers claim around 700,000 of the poorest families with children will benefit as a result of this change.
A UK Government spokesperson said: 'No child should be in poverty - that's why our Ministerial Taskforce is exploring all levers available across government to give children across the United Kingdom the best start in life.
'As we fix the foundations of the economy to make everyone better off, our Get Britain Working plan and the landmark Employment Rights Bill will help people find and maintain better paid and more secure jobs with stronger rights. We have increased the National Living Wage and are capping how much Universal Credit can be taken for debt repayments to put more money in people's pockets and help families build a brighter future.
'Both of Scotland's governments must work together to help more people into work, while always supporting those who cannot.'
