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Child Poverty in Scotland

I cannot say that I am grateful for the Minister’s intervention, which is the usual pile of rubbish that we have consistently heard on this issue. We have been here again and again. The fairytale of Aberdeen has several choruses and verses, and he has just added a further verse. It is good to take part in this debate, and particularly good to be able to discuss the report by the Scottish Affairs Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Sarwar). When I hear all the references to his fine chairmanship of that Committee, I sometimes wish that I could experience it, but I guess that my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr. MacNeil) is in that position for us just now. It would be churlish of me not to say that yes, of course, the situation concerning child poverty has improved since the election of a Labour Government in 1997. There is absolutely no doubt about that, and it would be foolish to try to pretend otherwise. However, we should look at what they inherited—the scorched earth policies of the Conservatives. Even Attila the Hun wearing a red rosette would have had to have improved on the situation that new Labour inherited when it took over from the Tories and their disastrous policies on employment and poverty. We are still in a situation that leaves 18 per cent. of our population in relative poverty and 130,000 Scottish children in absolute poverty. Worse than that, Save the Children reckons that some 90,000 Scottish children are still in what is regarded as severe poverty. After 11 years of a Labour Government, that is not good enough. We have to do much more to tackle this, the most pernicious of our social problems. I remember those days in 1997. I remember all those warm words—the almost missionary zeal with which the Labour party was going to tackle child poverty. We heard fantastic statements from the former First Minister—the late, great Donald Dewar—about what he was going to do. Child poverty was to be halved by 2010 and major targets were to be taken forward to deal with it.