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Child Poverty in Scotland

As the hon. Gentleman would recognise if he had listened to what I have said about the work that we are undertaking and to the statements made in the Budget by the Chancellor—not just the current Chancellor but the previous one—we know that we still have a long way to go. Let me throw this back at him. Given that he comes from a party that did not even recognise that there was an issue with child poverty and now uses warm words in a document published only a few days ago, which is still light on what it is going to do about tackling the problem, there are more questions for him than there are for us. In spite of the tight fiscal climate in the 2008 Budget, we demonstrated our ongoing commitment, with £950 million of additional spending to tackle child poverty. The Budget set out the next steps, with measures that will make significant further progress towards the target of halving child poverty by 2010. Those included a further £50 increase to the child element of child tax credit from April 2009, an increase in the first child rate of child benefit to £20 from April 2009, and the introduction of a child benefit disregard for housing benefit and council tax benefit purposes. Those measures alone will lift up to a further 250,000 children out of poverty and towards our final goal of abolishing it altogether. We recognise, however, that abolishing child poverty can be achieved only by working in partnership. That was recognised in the title of our 2008 Budget document, ““Ending child poverty: everybody’s business””, which sets out the next steps that we will take, including new pilots and further areas of work to achieve the 2020 target. One expression of that partnership is the joint child poverty unit, supported by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. That unit brings together child poverty policy officials and analysts in the two Departments, along with a secondee from Barnardo’s, to provide a co-ordinated and focused approach. The unit will regularly meet its counterparts in the devolved Administrations through the four countries policy forum. The aim of the meetings is to share understanding, data and good practice and to drive forward the UK child poverty strategy. The forum had its first meeting on 22 January 2008. Beyond that partnership, the UK Government are open to further practical suggestions in working with all our Scottish partners, including the Scottish Executive, local authorities, charities and businesses. As I said, we welcome the second and third reports of the Scottish Affairs Committee, Session 2007-08, on poverty in Scotland and child poverty in Scotland. The Committee identified a number of issues that it believes need to be addressed, and we want to respond by being part of the coalition within and outside Government that will continue to work together to build on the progress already made. Back in 1999, this Government had the courage and vision to set targets to halve child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it by 2020. Today, almost a decade on, we are as determined as ever to meet those challenging goals. However, Westminster and Whitehall cannot achieve those objectives alone. Ending child poverty requires a sustained national, regional and local effort that involves the devolved Administrations and all agencies, service providers and professionals, including communities and businesses. We set out the beginnings of a contract in ““Ending child poverty: everybody’s business””. It was a pledge that all parts of society would do their bit to tackle this blight on children, communities and future prosperity. The Government will work closely with all stakeholders, including through a series of workshops and debates this summer, to develop the UK’s longer-term strategy to eradicate child poverty by 2020. The UK Government want to continue to work with the Scottish Government. That working relationship is vital if we are to make progress on our shared goal to eradicate child poverty in Scotland, but it needs to be based on a mature partnership. We cannot allow this vital issue to become a political football on the constitutional pitch. We have to increase the pace of change, but the political will is there to do exactly that. That is something that we will see coming through clearly in the months ahead.