Regional Inequalities: Child Poverty

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am delighted to participate in this debate on regional inequalities and child poverty on behalf of the Scottish National party. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), who has brought this issue to the Floor of Westminster Hall, although I echo her sentiments that for us to be debating this in the UK in 2022 is an absolute disgrace.

When it comes to child poverty, of course, from Scotland’s perspective it is a tale of two Governments. In Scotland under the SNP, we see a progressive Government on a mission to tackle child poverty, even though 85% of welfare is reserved to the UK Government. Tackling child poverty is at the heart of the new Scottish budget—a budget that, it has to be said, must be balanced every year by law, yet the Scottish child payment has been doubled. Just as the UK Government scrapped targets to reduce child poverty, the Scottish Government set out ambitious targets for eradicating it with the limited powers they have. Just as the Scottish Government doubled the child payment to £20, so the UK Government cruelly cut £20 per week from those same families when they cut universal credit, knowing that when they made that cut they were pushing thousands of families into poverty. The contrast between the Tory UK Government and the SNP Scottish Government could not be clearer. There can be no doubt that the Scottish child payment, delivered by the Scottish Government, is the most ambitious child poverty reduction measure in the whole of the UK.

In contrast, the UK Government delivered overnight the biggest cut to welfare support in over 70 years. It is deeply disappointing that the UK Government have ignored the Work and Pensions Committee report that outlined numerous proposals that the UK Government should implement to tackle the growing scandal of child poverty. There is no strategy from this Government or any measurable objectives against which they can be held to account on this issue. If I am wrong about that, the Minister will be able to tell us, either when he gets to his feet or in an intervention, what the plan is to tackle this and what measurable objectives are in place, against which we can hold this Government to account and measure the progress they are making in tackling this scourge. Perhaps the Government simply hope that child poverty will go away and that we will shut up and stop talking about it, or perhaps it is simply not a priority. It would be good to have clarity on that.

If this Government are genuinely serious about tackling child poverty, then they should reintroduce targets. They should have UK-wide statutory child poverty targets that will allow us to measure the progress that has or has not been made in tackling this problem. In Scotland, plans to tackle child poverty were backed by real action, including a £50 million tackling child poverty action fund. The UK Government could replicate that work, in the absence of any of their own ideas, to confront this scandal.

The Scottish Budget for 2022-23 tackles child poverty and inequality by targeting over £4 billion in social security and welfare payments, including £197 million committed to the game-changing Scottish child payment from next month, which will be extended to all under-16s. It is expected that around 430,000 children living in low income households could be eligible from that point. In line with the Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasts, the Scottish Government are committed to over £3.9 billion for benefit expenditure in 2022-23, to provide support to over 1 million people. The extent of the Scottish Government’s commitment to tackling child poverty is illustrated by the fact that this is £361 million above the level of funding to be received from the UK Government through the block grant adjustment, showing that the investment the Scottish Government are making in the people of Scotland is key to the national mission of tackling child poverty.

The latest report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, “UK Poverty 2022,” reveals that

“Child poverty continues to rise.”

It reports that almost one in three children across the UK live in poverty. Nearly half of children in single-parent households live in poverty. Larger families and single-parent families have particularly high levels of poverty rates. Across the whole of Ayrshire and in my constituency of North Ayrshire and Arran around one in four children live in poverty, but the numbers are rising as many families find they are overwhelmed with the cost of living crisis, as essential household costs soar.

While welfare support is to increase by 3.1% in April, inflation, as we have heard today, is expected to reach around 7%. That figure shows that there will be a real-terms cut in welfare support. With the best will in the world, parents and families are doing their very best, but for far too many poverty has them in its grip. Poverty in working households is at its highest, and those in work now face not just a cost of living crisis but from next month national insurance hikes, as we already face unsustainable financial pressure. So much for making work pay.

It is shocking that the Government’s response to child poverty simply is not evolving to meet the growing challenges of inequality. That is why we have among the highest levels of inequality in Europe, which is all too evident in my constituency of North Ayrshire and Arran. As support is being eroded by inflation, families are increasingly borrowing to pay essential household bills, leaving them dangerously exposed to unsustainable debt. That has the potential to destroy families.

John Dickie, the director of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, agrees that the Scottish Government are doing all they can to tackle child poverty, but we all know that the full range of powers to make proper inroads into this are reserved to Westminster. Like many people in this room, I have participated in a number of debates on child poverty, and I hope the Minister will not do the same thing as always—get to his feet and simply lay out what he believes his Government are already doing. Clearly, as he has heard from every speech today, what has already been done is simply not enough. The numbers are rising. The facts speak for themselves—more needs to be done. What we need to hear from the Minister is what this Government’s plan is. Where are their targets to deal with this social blight?

Until, and unless, the Government seek to seriously grapple with the shame and scandal of child poverty, they can forget about making meaningful inroads into the poverty-related attainment gap. It simply cannot be done. Poverty is a scourge, and hungry children cannot reach their potential. The effect of poverty on those whose lives it has touched is corrosive. I agree with the points made by the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) that for children, poverty colours their world view. It impacts on their self-esteem, it limits their ambitions and it imposes limitations on their success in school as well as their social relationships. Poverty’s shadow is a strong determiner of health outcomes well into adulthood. It shortens too many lives, far before their time. Ultimately, poverty kills.

However well a child might do in life against all the odds, having grown up in deep poverty, the shadow of that experience never goes away even as an adult. I know this because I grew up in poverty. That is why I believe that as a society we need to do all we can to protect children from that damaging and corrosive experience, so that they can grow into healthy adults and fully rounded citizens. I am very keen to hear what the Minister has to say in response to this debate. We do not need to hear measures that he thinks have already been put in place. We need to hear what the plan for the future is. What more will be done? We need targets which this Government will work towards to tackle this serious social issue, and against which we can hold them to account. I hope that is what we will hear in the response.

I doubt that the Minister will say anything that will dissuade me from the steadfast view that we in Scotland, who wish to build a fairer, more equal and more just society, can only do so with the full range of powers at the disposal of a Scottish Parliament in an independent Scotland. Then we can build the kind of society that we want to see for our children.