Scottish Child Payment set to double to £20 per week from next financial year

THE Scottish Child Care Payment is to double to £20 a week from next April, Nicola Sturgeon has announced.

The SNP initially promised to double the devolved top-up benefit for low income families by 2026 to help address child poverty but has now accelerated the timetable.

Ms Sturgeon said the move would deliver “the boldest and most ambitious anti-poverty measure anywhere in the UK”, but hinted at cuts to pay for it.

She said delivery would not be easy and “involve hard choices elsewhere in our budget”.

However it was a choice that the SNP and the Greens in government had opted to make, she said.

Paid monthly since February this year, the benefit is currently worth £10 per week for each child under 6 years old, and is due to be rolled out for all qualifying children under 16 by the end of 2022.

Ms Sturgeon said: “I am very pleased – indeed proud – to announce today that our budget on December 9 will fund the doubling of the Scottish Child Payment immediately from the start of the new financial year.

“The Scottish Child Payment will increase to £20 per child per week – four times the amount originally demanded by campaigners – from April.

“That means the doubled payments will reach over 100,000 children under age 6 in just four months’ time.

“And when we extend the Scottish Child Payment to all under 16s at the end of next year, over 400,000 children and their families will be eligible.”

John Dickie, director of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, said the move was “a hugely welcome development on the path to meeting Scotland’s child poverty targets”.

He said: “This is a real lifeline for the families across Scotland, who are facing a perfect storm of financial insecurity as the UK cut to universal credit bites, energy prices soar and the wider costs of living rise.”