Scotland’s leading anti-poverty and children’s campaigners have joined forces to call for an emergency financial lifeline to help keep desperate families afloat.
Bill Scott, of the poverty and inequality commission, and children’s commissioner Bruce Adamson said the economic fallout of a global health crisis is having a devastating impact.
In a joint plea to the Scottish Government, revealed by the Record today, they warned the recent decision to bring forward a £10-a-week Scottish Child Payment to February is too late for too many.
They wrote: "We have a duty to speak out when the Scottish Government can do more to loosen the grip of poverty, and to protect children's rights. And we believe not only that it can, but that it must do so urgently."
Shameful statistics show how bad the reality is in Scotland:
- Nearly one in four children in Scotland live in poverty.
Around two thirds of children in poverty live in a household where someone has a job.
More than a third of children in lone parent households live in poverty. Most of those lone parents are women.
Scott and Adamson, whose full remarks are printed below, want more cash set aside in the next programme for government to help young people and women now.
They claimed the government should be able to use existing powers to put the same £10-a-week sum into people's pockets without a six-month wait.
The Scottish Government insisted they are doing what they can while the UK Government controls most benefit responsibilities.
A Scottish Government spokesman acknowledged the difficulties facing families during the pandemic.
"This is why we are doing everything with the powers we have to tackle poverty, including child poverty – but the UK Government retains control of many of the key welfare policies – it must match our efforts by taking action to reverse welfare cuts which are hitting harder than ever - including the benefit cap, bedroom tax, and two child limit, as well as making fundamental alterations to Universal Credit," the spokesman said.
"Our policies include the introduction of the new Scottish Child Payment which will tackle child poverty head-on, while in order to provide immediate support to families we have more than doubled the Scottish Welfare Fund, increased the budget for Discretionary Housing Payments by £5 million and invested over £110 million to tackle food insecurity caused by the crisis – including extending Free School Meal provision over the summer holidays.
"We are also taking action to support people into employment with a £100 million package to help those looking for work or at risk of redundancy, including a job guarantee for young people and a new national retraining scheme as well as a £2.35 million increase for our Parental Employability Support Fund."
