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Child Poverty in Scotland

I hear your words clearly, Mr. Deputy Speaker: this debate is about child poverty. I hope that my contribution will be brief, succinct and to the point. We serve on a friendly Committee, under the good chairmanship of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Sarwar), to whose work I would like to pay tribute. He does a good job, his approach is very inclusive and he is most kind to all Members, regardless of party or political persuasion. That is important to note. I would like to say that it is a pleasure to be taking part in this debate—but I would much rather not be taking part in such a debate. Such a debate should no longer be necessary, just as debates about children sweeping chimneys need no longer occur. Those are things of the past, and I wish that child poverty, too, was a thing of the past. Child poverty in Scotland, or in any European or first-world state, should be a thing of the past. Perhaps if international prestige were measured by the equity of society, or by low levels of child poverty, the nations that currently vie for influence on the world stage might be higher in the UNICEF table covering the well-being of children in rich countries. I refer, of course, to the United States of America and the United Kingdom, which prop up that table, just below some former eastern European bloc states. The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark lead the table, incidentally. The conclusions of the report by the Scottish Affairs Committee might be a good place to start. Progress has been made since 1997, and we all recognise and welcome that. Progress continues to be made, although its pace may be slowing. The report states, on page 29, that the 2010 target of lifting 50 per cent. of children out of poverty will be missed, even if the uptake of tax credits improves. We all know about the difficulty of ensuring that targeted benefits hit their target. The first recommendation of the report shows concern because there is a slowdown in poverty reduction in the UK, but it should be noted that Scotland is doing a little better. However, much of that apparent success may well be attributable to the poorer baseline from which Scotland started. It is still notable that the rate of child poverty in Scotland is still higher than the average for the UK. It is also clear that the main levers to address child poverty are held by the UK Government. That was emphasised by numerous witnesses to the Committee, who said that the UK Government held all the cards. Among those witnesses was Guy Palmer from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, who said:"““The big policy levers are the non-devolved levers to do with tax and benefits.””" That was echoed by Joe Connolly from NCH, who said:"““It is not for the Scottish Executive, as it was known, but a UK issue.””" Nevertheless, the Government of Scotland, not content to wait for the adjustments of a lumbering ship of state to deal with the matter, have their own plans to tackle poverty, inequality and deprivation. To be fair to the previous two-party Government in Scotland, they did much the same—or at least tried to. Governments everywhere are united in efforts to reduce child poverty, which is a blight on any society, especially Scottish society. That more than 20 per cent., and perhaps even 25 per cent., of children live in poverty is surely a challenge for us all, regardless of political persuasion and regardless of where we live. This is a problem for nations throughout western Europe. Perhaps if we all believed in reincarnation, so that we would have a one in four chance of being caught up in poverty in the next life, we might make more urgent and pressing efforts to address it. I shall leave that for others to ponder—