Programme for Government must keep families afloat and double down on ending child poverty

Tomorrow’s Programme for Government comes at a critical time for struggling families across Scotland. Over the last year really welcome steps were taken by the Scottish government to boost family incomes – not least the doubling of the Scottish child payment to £20 a week – but eye-watering energy and food price hikes are still pushing families over the brink. Low-income families in Scotland may now be better off than those elsewhere in the UK – but that’s of little consolation when you still can’t pay the bills or put food on the table.

There’s no question that the UK government holds the main levers needed to keep families afloat in the coming months. The new PM will need to use the UK social security system to get extra cash to families urgently, and in a way that recognises that families with children face energy bills on average 30% higher than for other households.

But the Scottish government can, and must, do more to stop families being pulled under. The First Minister must use her Programme for Government to continue to do the right thing and prioritise protecting children from the immediate crisis. At the same time she needs to safeguard the longer term progress needed to meet Scotland’s statutory child poverty targets.

What does that mean in practice, and what would we hope to see in the Programme for Government?

Well, most urgently it means reviewing government budgets and getting additional cash support to families, fast. That’s why, along with over 120 children’s charities, trade unions, faith groups and anti-poverty campaigners’, we have urged her to double the remaining bridging payments being paid to some off the worst-off school aged children until the Scottish child payment is fully rolled out later this year. An extra £260 for families for each child not yet getting Scottish child payment could, as part of a wider package of support, make a real difference. The potential to use Scottish child payment to make further additional payments in response to the cost-of-living crisis also needs to be urgently explored, alongside action to increase the value and administrative capacity of the Scottish welfare fund.

Looking ahead it is vital that the Scottish government locks in the impact of the increases it has rightly made to the Scottish child payment, as well as planning for further increases to ensure child poverty targets are met. By the end of this year the payment will be worth £25 a week per eligible child. But we need to make sure that that £25 holds it value, so that it can buy the same essentials next year as it does this. That’s why we are calling for a commitment to at the very least ensure an above inflation increase to the £25 payment next April.

The latest forecast from the Resolution Foundation highlights that it is children that are at most risk of being pushed into poverty by the current crisis. Children in larger families are at even greater risk, as the UK benefit cap and two-child limit continue to arbitrarily exclude so many of them from increasingly vital social security support. These stark forecasts suggest more will be needed to safeguard progress in Scotland – particularly for groups, like larger families, that are already identified as priority within the Scottish government’s child poverty delivery plan. That’s why we need to see commitment to mitigate the two-child limit, alongside urgent delivery of the commitment to mitigate the benefit cap.  These UK poverty-generating policies need to be scrapped at source, but in the meantime Scotland’s powers can be used to reduce their damaging impact.

Of course, it’s not just through using Scotland’s social security powers that the Holyrood government can help prevent the crisis facing families from becoming a catastrophe. Delivering on the now overdue promise of free school meals for all primary pupils, and making sure more secondary school pupils get a free school meal, would be one straightforward way of relieving pressure on family budgets and ensuring all our children are getting at least one healthy meal a day, whatever the circumstance their families are facing.

And whilst the Programme for Government needs to respond to the immediate crisis it also needs to double down on existing commitments that are central to meeting Scotland child poverty targets. That means ensuring adequate resources are being made to deliver on the extension of funded childcare to one- and two-year-olds and the development of wrap around childcare for school aged children that Ministers have already committed to. Equally important will be to sustain investment in employment support for parents, ensuring that support recognises the realities parents now face just keeping their families from going hungry and cold.

Of course all this costs money. But when children’s life chances are on the line we need to harness our collective wealth and income to protect and support them. The Scottish government needs to review all the tax powers it has and make progressive use of devolved taxes to fund the social infrastructure needed, not just to prevent more children being pushed into poverty, but to help end that poverty for good.