Ministers have an opportunity to help children in poverty. They must take it

Shaunie, a single parent we work with, puts it best: “An extra £10 a week could totally change the world.”

Keira explains how a £20-a-week payment would make a difference to her family: “For some people £20 doesn’t seem like a lot but that’s milk, that’s bread, that’s £10 maybe on the electric or the gas. So that would be a big deal. We just survive as it is.”

With less than three weeks to go until the Scottish Government Budget, there is a golden opportunity to take action to help low-income families and to deliver on the “national mission” to tackle child poverty.

That means doubling the Scottish Child Payment from £10 per week to £20 per week now and not delaying any further. All parties signed up to this commitment at the election. It’s now a question of timing. And, for families across Scotland, this simply can’t happen soon enough.

An extra £10 a week might not sound much to some people but to a parent on a very low income, an additional £10 can go a really long way.

As December arrives, we expect to see increased stress among the families we work with. The Universal Credit cut is being felt in parents’ weekly incomes, the weather is worsening and the financial impact of having the heating on will hit hard. Food prices have started to rise along with other living costs and, of course, the financial stress of Christmas is a few short weeks away.

Reduced income and increasing costs taken together are pushing many over the edge, leaving parents and carers with impossible choices.

Alice, a single mother of two from Dundee, says: “I am just burning through my gas so badly. I’m at the point where it is ‘get another jumper, get a hot water bottle, get a blanket’, because I can’t afford to keep having the heating on.

“My son is eight months old, and I have him in little dressing gowns and stuff to make sure he’s warm enough in the house.” No parent in Scotland should be going hungry to feed their child. No parent in Scotland should be turning off the heating in winter to afford a warm coat for their child. The “choices” are stark, which is why the Scottish Government must step in and put money in the pockets of those parents who need it most.

At Save the Children, we’ve been providing emergency support to families across Scotland since the start of the pandemic. And we will continue to do what we can. But crisis support is not as good as families having their own reliable and stable income – although a safety net is there to protect all of us when we need it. We need action now. Children living in poverty across Scotland simply cannot wait.

We urge the Scottish Government to make the promised investment for families most in need and to make it a central pillar in this winter’s budget. Of course there are competing pressures on the budget but this is about choices.

If we, as a nation, are going to deliver on our commitment to reduce child poverty from 26% to 10% in the next eight years, we must take decisive action to turn this tanker.

More than one in four children in Scotland is living in poverty and

behind that statistic are children and parents struggling to afford the essentials many of us take for granted – surviving rather than thriving. Every child should have an equal chance to be and to become.

Doubling the Scottish Child Payment could lift 50,000 children out of poverty – if extended to all children under 16. This SNP Government has the power to change that. It has said it wants to double the child payment “sooner rather than later”.

For families across Scotland this can’t come soon enough. The budget provides the opportunity. Childhood doesn’t wait. The government shouldn’t either.