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Child Poverty in Scotland

We are not in total control of the agenda, obviously, but as I will say later in my speech, if I ever get there, we are working with the Scottish Government to examine ways in which we can co-operate to ensure that we meet what is, in fairness, a shared objective on the abolition of child poverty by 2020. My next comment may help the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). In successive Budgets, we have used the tax and benefits system to work in ways that support the most vulnerable but retain incentives to work. We have targeted our financial resources to ensure that work pays, as well as to help families who, for whatever reason, cannot work. Those tax and benefit initiatives have also been key to alleviating child poverty and directly supporting needy families. I am therefore delighted to be able to advise the House that from April 2010, when the latest changes come into effect, the average Scottish household with children will be £2,000 better off in real terms since 1997—and low-paid families have benefited disproportionately. Scottish households with children in the poorest fifth of the population will be £4,100 better off. I also ask the House to note that take-up of tax credits for families with children is higher than under any previous system of income-related financial support for in-work families. In 2004-05, take-up of child tax credit in Scotland rose to 82 per cent., with 94 per cent. of the money claimed. Take-up among those with incomes of less than £10,000 is now 97 per cent. All those reforms have been key to alleviating child poverty. Had the Government done nothing other than merely to uprate the 1997 tax and benefits system, the number of children in poverty might be 1.7 million higher than it is today.