Programme for Government 2021-22

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 7 September 2021.

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Photo of Pam Duncan-Glancy Pam Duncan-Glancy Labour

There are some announcements in today’s programme for government that I and many others will welcome: a national care service that ends non-residential care charges, a disability and equality strategy and a bill to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004. I will work with the Government where I can on all those matters, in particular where they reduce poverty and progress equality and human rights.

However, I am really disappointed, as some of the crucial things that I had hoped to hear are missing. In Scotland today, 26 per cent of children live in poverty—that is one in four children. One child in poverty is one too many, and one day in poverty is too long. That is why I am deeply disappointed that the Government has not committed to doubling the Scottish child payment immediately. Doing so would make a massive difference to families right across Scotland right now. It would lift at least 10,000 children out of poverty.

As it stands, we are set to miss the child poverty targets that we set ourselves in law—targets that were agreed unanimously by this Parliament before the pandemic, and without caveat. That is why we are deeply disappointed not only that there is no commitment to increase the payment right now but that the ambitions outlined in the programme on child poverty—the ending of which we in Scottish Labour will be laser focused on—do not go nearly far enough.

Members will be aware that we in Scottish Labour believe that the Scottish Government must go further and faster. It must double the payment now, and again within the year. An increase to £40 a week is the best chance that we have of meeting our interim child poverty target of 18 per cent. We did not pluck that figure out of the air: the Institute for Public Policy Research and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have modelled it. In one action, we could lift a further 50,000 children out of poverty and make a real difference to lives right across the country.

I urge the SNP-Green Government to recognise the urgent need to act now to tackle the scourge of poverty in the country.