Child poverty on the rise in Scotland

The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has urged the Scottish Government to use devolved welfare powers to deliver on its inequality ambitions following new figures showing an additional 20,000 children were pushed into living in poverty between 2011-14 and 2014-17.

The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act set four legally binding, income-based targets for the reduction of child poverty, with a headline target to reduce relative child poverty to less than 10 per cent by 2030.

But new figures show child poverty in Scotland rose from 21 per cent, or 210,000, in 2011-14, to 24 per cent, or 230,000, in 2014-17, with 66 per cent of children in poverty living in working families.

The proportion is even higher across the UK, with 30 per cent of children living in poverty.

Pointing to cuts to welfare spending at a UK level as a key driver of the rise in child poverty, CPAG director John Dickie warned that without a real change of direction by the UK government then Scottish targets will be “extremely difficult to meet”.

He said: “The Prime Minister entered Downing Street with a pledge to protect the living standards of ordinary families. Today's official child poverty figures show her government is in denial on child poverty. If the Prime Minister is to make good on its pledge of support for struggling families, ending the punitive freeze on benefits for working and non-working families must be an absolute priority.”

Dickie added: “These latest figures show that between 2014 and 2017 a shocking one in four children in Scotland were living in poverty, up from 21 per cent in the period 2011-14. 66 per cent of those children are living in working families and all the evidence suggests that eye-watering cuts to UK benefits for families both in and out of work are the key drivers of this upward trend.

“Behind these statistics are thousands of children going hungry, missing out on school trips, unable to enjoy the activities and educational opportunities their better off peers take for granted. Supporting those children are parents too often going without meals, juggling debt and seeing their own health suffer to protect their children from the poverty they face”.