Sturgeon announces £100 winter handout for neediest families
FAMILIES on benefits or l ow incomes are to get a £100 winter handout, Nicola Sturgeon will announce today.
It will be available for families where children qualify for free school meals to spend on ‘whatever will help them through the winter’ as part of a £100million package.
Miss Sturgeon will announce the grant in her keynote speech to the SNP’s virtual conference, where she is expected to ramp up her bid to tear Scotland out of the UK.
It comes after a senior SNP minister yesterday said it was ‘utter madness’ to push through Brexit during the coronavirus pandemic – then claimed it is ‘precisely the time’ to step up the party’s bid to break up Britain.
The First Minister will tell conference that the planned winter fund shows ‘we
‘Food, new shoes or a winter coat for the kids’
won’t wait to be independent to start doing the right things now’.
But political opponents pointed out that the policy is funded by an extra £9.5billion the UK Treasury has handed to the Scottish Government to help fight the coronavirus pandemic.
The winter grants, which will be issued in time for Christmas, will be available to around 156,000 parents in Scotland, at a cost of £15.6million.
Miss Sturgeon will say: ‘ We will shortly become the only part of the UK to give lowincome families an extra £10 per week for every child – initially for children up to age six and then for every child up to age 16. This has been described as a game-changer in the fight to end child poverty.
‘The first payments will be made in February. But I know that for families struggling now, February is still a long way off. So I am announcing today a £100million package to bridge that gap, and help others struggling most with the impact of Covid over the winter months.
‘It will include money to help people pay their fuel bills and make sure children don’t go hungry. It will offer additional help for the homeless, and fund an initiative to get older people online and connected.’
Miss Sturgeon said the preChristmas grants could be used for anything, adding: ‘That could be food, new shoes or a winter coat for the kids. Families will know best what they need.’
Annie Wells, communities spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said: ‘Up to this point, the UK Government has provided an extra £9.5billion for Scotland to fight Covid, so, I would welcome any indication the SNP are now passing some of that on.’
She added: ‘The SNP have a poor track record on delivering benefits, however. And they seem to have nothing to say about protecting jobs or the Scottish economy. According to the Fraser of Allander Institute, the Nationalists are hoarding £1billion of UK money.’
The £100 payment will go to those on universal credit, income support, jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance, and any in receipt of immigration or asylum support. It will also be paid to low earners.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: ‘It is through the economic strength of the UK and the strength of devolution that the SNP are able to make this decision.
‘If Nicola Sturgeon has her way we will spend years arguing about independence instead of securing a fair and green recovery.
‘We must have a needle- sharp focus on education, the NHS, jobs and climate change instead of years of division and cost with another independence debate.’
Addressing the conference, Constitution Secretary Mike Russell declared it was ‘utter madness to be undertaking Brexit in the midst of a pandemic’ but went on to say it was ‘precisely the time we need to choose independence’.
Today, Miss Sturgeon is expected to claim that independence offers a chance to escape Boris Johnson’s decisions.