We must beat poverty

Last week in the Scottish Parliament we debated the Child Poverty (Scotland) Bill.

This is a bill that will enable the Scottish Government to get crucial data of where child poverty exists and what public bodies – whether they are local councils, NHS trusts or other public bodies, will have to report on what they are doing and what is happening.

This will help for a number of reasons.

Getting the crucial data will help inform the Scottish Government of where the difficulties are.

This may sound silly as most of us could rhyme off areas we believe to be in relative poverty – but it’s not.

During the evidence sessions we had during stage 1 of the bill in the Social Security Committee, many experts stated that the current data sets are incomplete.

Getting the data is important ...but it is what any government does with it that is important.

That’s the bit that changes people’s lives.

During the debate Conservative members had the barefaced cheek to defend the UK Tory Government on this issue.

We all know that the so-called Conservative Welfare Reforms are sending people into further poverty as they attempt to destroy the welfare state.

The Conservatives have never been big fans of the welfare state.

But it is not enough to say that getting people back to work will make the difference because that argument is too simplistic.

Many of the families who are struggling in our communities are families that will be loosing out on Child Tax Credit changes.

There is also the very important point that it is not just work at any cost that people need. What they need are well paid jobs that offer them and their family a future.