SCOTTISH charities have urged the Chancellor to drop her plans to impose benefit cuts and instead invest to end child poverty as a “priority”.
On Wednesday, Rachel Reeves will set out the UK Government’s first spending review since she announced £5 billion of cuts to disability benefits in the September 2024 Budget.
Earlier this week the UK Government U-turned on its proposed cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners, sparking calls for ministers to go further and end the two-child benefit cap.
We previously told how research, commissioned by the SNP, found that almost two million families in the UK would be lifted out of poverty if Westminster followed Scotland’s lead.
This would mean abolishing the two-child benefit cap, scrapping the bedroom tax and raising the child element of Universal Credit to match the Scottish child payment.
The Scottish Government has also previously called on the Chancellor to rethink the cuts and to fully fund the National Insurance employer increase for Scotland’s public services.
The spending review comes amid warnings the number of children in the UK living in poverty is expected to rise to a record 4.6 million by 2029-30.
Satwat Rehman, chief executive of One Parent Families Scotland, told The National: “We are deeply concerned that the government is pressing ahead with damaging welfare reforms - including proposed cuts to disability benefits and delays to the long-promised child poverty strategy.
“In the midst of a worsening cost-of-living crisis, these decisions risk pushing already struggling single-parent families into even deeper hardship.
“The growing uncertainty is compounding anxiety for single parents, who face immense financial strain and will be disproportionately impacted as sole carers and providers for their children.
Over the past decade, the number of children living in poverty has risen from 3.7m (27%) in 2013/14 to 4.5m (31%) in 2023/24.
John Dickie, director of Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, also urged the UK Government to rethink its swingeing benefit cus.
“If the UK Government is serious about bringing forward a credible child poverty strategy the Chancellor must commit to allocating the resources needed to scrap the two-child limit,” he told The National.
“It’s the single biggest driver of rising child poverty across the UK - pushing 109 more children into poverty every single day that passes.
“And with families affected by disability at even higher risk of poverty, a major rethink is also needed on planned cuts to disability and sickness benefits.
“The spending review offers an opportunity to weigh up not just the moral costs of child poverty but the economic costs. Leaving so many of our children to grow up in poverty is a drag on the economy and a massive fiscal burden on the public services left to pick up the pieces.
“Investing to end child poverty must be the priority.”
It comes as UK health, defence, and education departments are set to see a funding boost in the announcement, with £113bn going to capital funding for infrastructure projects.
The Acorn carbon capture hub in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, is reportedly set to receive funding.
Reeves is set to tell the Commons: “The priorities in this spending review are the priorities of working people.
“To invest in our country’s security, health and economy so working people all over our country are better off.”
The Chancellor has also already announced some £15.6 billion of spending on public transport in England’s city regions, and £16.7 billion for nuclear power projects, the bulk of which will fund the new Sizewell C plant in Suffolk.
Wes Streeting’s health department is set to be one of the biggest winners for funding, ahead of the publication of the NHS 10-year plan, due to be released shortly after the spending review.
The full implications for Scotland, and what funding will be made available for ministers, will not be clear until after the full statement.
