Substantive investment needed to meet child poverty targets, MSPs told

Not meeting targets for cutting child poverty in Scotland by the end of the decade would be a “great failure” for Holyrood, MSPs have been told – with the warning that “substantive additional investment” is needed.

With figures showing almost a quarter (24%) of children in Scotland are growing up in poverty, John Dickie, director of the Child Poverty Action Group Scotland, said the current policy package is “nowhere near adequate to ensure we reach the targets set out in the legislation”.

Legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2017 commits the Government to reducing the number of youngsters in relative poverty to less than 10% by 2030.

Mr Dickie warned: “The reality is far, far too many children are still living in poverty in Scotland.”

Telling MSPs on Holyrood’s Social Justice and Social Security Committee that families are “facing extraordinary hardship day in, day out”, he called on ministers to increase the Scottish child payment – a benefit paid weekly to low-income families – and improve the overall support given.

He insisted there is “no credible route to meeting the 2030 target that doesn’t involve further investment, above inflation increases to the Scottish child payment”.

Mr Dickie argued for increased investment in childcare to help more parents – particularly women – boost their working hours and therefore their earnings, as well as efforts to “ensure that decent housing is available and its costs don’t push parents into poverty”.

He insisted: “These things all need to happen and that will require substantive additional investment.”

He welcomed the Scottish Government’s focus on child poverty – an area which has been made a priority by First Minister John Swinney – but said all parties at Holyrood must “demonstrate how they will secure and harness the resources needed” to ensure targets are met.

He warned that as things stand, “we are a long way off meeting the targets”.

Holyrood unanimously backed the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017, but Mr Dickie said since then there has been a “failure of the Parliament to hold Government to account, because progress has stalled”.

Meanwhile Chris Birt, associate director for Scotland at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said meeting the targets should be seen as a “litmus test” for Holyrood, as he urged MSPs to “double down” on efforts achieve them.

He said: “I do think the Scottish Parliament as a whole should see these targets as a litmus test of this institution, because when this Act was passed we looked at Westminster, who had binned their targets, child poverty was on the rise, it is now at outrageous levels.

“This Parliament stood up and said ‘no, we want to see this change, we remain committed’. But we’re still a long way off it.

“I do think now is the time to double down across the political spectrum and say ‘how are we going to do this?’.”

He warned it was “a great failure on the part of the UK government to bin those targets”, and it “would be a great failure on the part of this Parliament not to meet ours”.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Eradicating child poverty in Scotland is a national mission for the Scottish Government.

“There can be no acceptable number of children living in poverty and we will continue to do everything within the scope of our powers and budget to meet the 2030 child poverty targets and deliver the change needed.

“Our five family payments, including the game changing Scottish Child Payment, have provided over £1 billion of support to families in Scotland.

“We know our action is making a difference, with modelling published in February estimating that our policies will keep 100,000 children out of relative poverty this year.

“We will publish our third child poverty delivery plan by the end of March 2026, setting out the actions the Scottish Government will take between 2026-2031 to meet the final targets in 2030.

“However we also need the UK Government to do more.

“It is deeply disappointing they have failed to abolish the two-child limit, given the irrefutable evidence that the policy is increasing poverty and hardship across the UK.”