‘Challenging’ child poverty targets can still be met

Scotland still has a path to meeting its statutory child poverty targets but it will be "challenging", the Social Justice Secretary has said.

Shirley-anne Somerville was speaking after statistics released on Thursday showed 260,000 children (26 per cent) were living in relative poverty in Scotland in 2022-23.

That was up by about 30,000 from the previous year, after housing costs.

It led to child poverty campaigners reiterating their calls for the Scottish Government to increase the Scottish child payment to £40 per week, up from £25 currently and £26.70 from April.

Ms Somerville discussed the figures on the BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme yesterday.

She said: “We do think we can meet our statutory poverty targets, they will undoubtedly be challenging.”

It was put to her that the fraser of Allander Institute has said Scotland is not on track to meet the interim child poverty target of 18 per cent for 2023/24.

The legally-set target is to reduce relative child poverty to 10 per cent by 2030.

Ms Somerville continued: “They are challenging, i’ ve absolutely no doubt within that. But we do have a credible path to be able to meet those targets. that' s because of the £3 billion worth of expenditure that we have.”

She said the Scottish Government will do everything it can in the powers and budget it has to tackle child poverty, but she claimed the UK Government is continuing to “push people into poverty”.

Recent increases in the Scottish child payment demonstrate how seriously the Scottish Government takes the issue, she said.