The chancellor has done the bare minimum that is needed to prevent faster rises in child poverty. There are 4.2 million children living in poverty in the UK today. Ensuring benefits catch up with inflation, and increasing local housing allowance (LHA), will come as welcome news to the millions of families on the lowest incomes who have been left worried sick as speculation about benefit cuts and freezes played out in the news. Increasing these benefits should never have been in doubt, and we urge the government to ensure benefit uprating is placed on a statutory footing to avoid this process being repeated in future years.
In his Autumn Statement, the chancellor should invest in children by increasing social security benefits – reducing child poverty immediately and leading to higher long-term economic growth, as well as improved education and health outcomes, including life expectancy.
Two-thirds of people sent a migration notice between November 2022 and March 2023 made a successful UC claim before their migration deadline. A further 5 per cent made a claim after their deadline had passed. And 28 per cent did not claim UC at all and had their legacy benefit payments terminated. We are concerned that a sizeable minority of claimants are falling through the gaps.
Tackling child poverty in Scotland is a priority for the Scottish government, and the government's policies are working to reduce child poverty. However more needs to be done to ensure Scotland meets its legally binding child poverty targets. We have set out what the Scottish government's spending priorities should be to ensure child poverty targets are met.