Earlier this year, The Child Poverty Action Group forecast that, under current trajectories, the number of children living below the poverty line in the UK would stand at 4.8 million by the end of this parliament. Should this come to pass, it would be a rise of 300,000 since the 2024 election, marking the first time a Labour government leaves office with child poverty levels higher than when it took power.
But there is one country in the Union for whom the numbers are moving in the right direction. According to the latest statistics, child poverty in Scotland has fallen to its lowest level in three decades, with both absolute and relative rates continuing to sit well below the UK average. In the latest figures for 2023–24, those rates were 22 per cent and 17 per cent respectively – nine percentage points lower than the UK’s 31 per cent and 26 per cent.
Shirley-Anne Somerville has travelled south of the border ahead of the Autumn Budget keen to highlight those divergences. In addition to her media duties, Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice is in London to meet with several anti-poverty charities and academics. One meeting request, sent to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Pat McFadden, was ignored, she reveals pointedly.
With the much-trailed scrapping of the two-child benefit cap in the upcoming Budget yet to be confirmed, it is understandable why Labour leadership would keep its distance. The Scottish government has committed to mitigate the cap’s impact by introducing Scottish Universal Credit from March 2026, including a new £292.81 monthly payment per eligible child. The stipend is forecast to keep around 20,000 children out of relative poverty next year.
It’s the latest in a series of policies that have seen Scotland make progress on the issue while the rest of the UK falters – driven by an agenda, says Somerville, that prizes “dignity, fairness, and respect”.
The Scottish Child Payment, for example, provides £27.15 a week per child with no cap on family size, coming in addition to welfare support provided by Westminster. Independent modelling identifies it as Scotland’s most effective tool for reducing child poverty. Best Start Foods and Best Start Grants have also helped. These efforts are underpinned by the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017, which commits the country to reduce child poverty to below 10 per cent by 2030–31.
“The First Minister has made it very clear to all ministers that eradicating child poverty is his underlying mission,” Somerville tells Spotlight, speaking at the Scottish government offices on Victoria Embankment. “It allows us to challenge ourselves, just as other people challenge us, quite rightly, to move these policies forward.”
Some critics, including former Labour MSP Des McNulty, have argued cash interventions used as a “quick fix” fail to address the underlying structural causes of poverty. The criticism is that the SNP has prioritised hitting child poverty targets over investing in early intervention programmes and preventative measures aimed at vulnerable communities and demographic groups.
Somerville disagrees. She points to First Minister John Swinney’s summer pledge to deliver ‘whole family support’ across Scotland. “It’s not an either/or. It has to be a combination of social security and investment in people. Politicians are often criticised for being short term, but when you look at welfare, the whole family support, that is something which you will see the benefit for over a longer period of time.”
It should be stressed that successes have not been absolute. Under its statutory targets, Scotland had aimed to reduce relative child poverty to below 18 per cent and absolute child poverty to below 14 per cent by this point – figures it missed by 4 per cent and 3 per cent respectively.
Despite those thresholds not being met, however, it is a far more positive picture than for the UK as a whole. The Resolution Foundation notes that, without decisive intervention to support lower-income families, child poverty rates could climb to 34 per cent by 2030 – higher than at any point since records began in 1961.
Amassing public support for targeted policies is not the issue – even for this Labour government. Over three quarters of people in Scotland (77 per cent) want decision-makers to take more action on child poverty. The SNP has framed its agenda as the most immediate and measurable way to improve lives, using welfare powers to demonstrate that devolved policy can deliver results.
“We are still too tied to a Westminster system that has a values-based judgment that seems to think social security is wrong and investing in public services is something which should be challenged,” Somerville says. “What really disappoints me about the Labour government that’s come in is we’ve effectively got a lift and shift of policies from the Tories. You’re still seeing really destructive policies embedded in the UK social security system.”
The SNP has potential allies in its efforts to lend weight to that challenge. Swinney recently held talks with Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth to develop a “progressive alliance”, with specific focus on tackling child poverty. Plaid Cymru has already pledged to pilot a version of the Scottish Child Payment if it forms the next Welsh government.
Somerville believes the relationship between the SNP and Plaid shows voters that alternatives exist. “They do not have to wake up to a system where the chancellor is trying to work out how the prime minister can keep his job and choosing a tax policy on that basis,” she says. “We can make decisions for the benefit of the people of Scotland. We should be proud of the fact that we have progressive politics and there’s a progressive alternative to the othering of people in our society.”
For Labour it is an uncomfortable reminder that child poverty levels may yet become a defining metric of its time in government. Somerville notes if Scotland continues to forge ahead with its own model, the rest of the UK must decide whether to follow, or explain its refusal to do so.
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