Richard Leonard MSP, Central Scotland

Recent appearances

Scottish Parliament: Child Poverty Targets 4 Oct 2018

2. This week, the highly respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation published its annual “Poverty in Scotland 2018” report. It showed that one in four children in Scotland today lives in poverty. The First Minister has set a target to make that less than one in 10 by 2030, but what is her target for 2019?
Scottish Parliament: Child Poverty Targets 4 Oct 2018

Let us be clear: the First Minister has a target for 12 years’ time, but not for 12 months’ time. One action that would make an immediate difference to child poverty would be to increase child benefit. Over the past year, Parliament has passed the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 and the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017. In voting through both those acts, SNP MSPs opposed...
Scottish Parliament: Child Poverty Targets 4 Oct 2018

The answer to the question that I asked is not 20,000 children. It is that 30,000 children would be lifted out of poverty. That could be the First Minister’s 2019 target: to lift 30,000 children out of poverty. The report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation makes it clear that it is time to take “decisive steps to make transformational change.” The report also makes it clear...