Act now to save next generation

BACK on devastating form, Gordon Brown has laid out the challenge of child poverty in Scotland in the next decade.

In an article we urge every politician of every shade who is worthy of a vote to study, the former prime minister spells out the situation in stark terms.

Using Scottish Government figures, Brown shows poverty numbers are set to rise from just under 31 per cent of children in 2018 to about 38 per cent by 2027.

That represents a doubling of the number of kids in poverty since 2010, when Labour were last in office.

It’s not just a problem for the poorest parts of Glasgow or for someone else, as many comfortably-off people would like to think.

In East Kirkcaldy, where Brown was an MP, 40 per cent of children are in poverty but soon, on current projections, every second child will be affected. It is awful, unacceptable and avoidable. In power, Labour raised nearly one million children out of poverty. Through the redistribution of wealth and tax credits, Brown, as chancellor, lifted enough heads above water to make a difference.

The callous universal credit welfare scheme has taken the life jacket away from the poorest bobbing just above the surface and plunged them into poverty.

Brown’s solution is for the Scottish Parliament to top up tax credits and lift the next generation of children above the breadline.

It can and ought to be done. No politician worthy of the name should stand in the way of such a reform.