Ex-PM Brown fears child poverty will lead to ‘an invisible generation’
LACK OF action to tackle child poverty is creating “a generation of invisible boys and girls”, according to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
He accused both the Scottish and UK governments of ignoring what he described as “a national disgrace”, and called for increases in welfare payments to address the issue.
The number of children living in poverty is set to increase to 5.2 million by 2022, up from around four million at present, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Meanwhile a separate report commissioned by the Scottish Government and published in April shows a sharp rise in child poverty north of the border, with a projected increase of more than 100,000 by the mid-2020s.
Mr Brown said the problem had reached “epidemic proportions”, pointing to a report which put child poverty in the UK at around 1.6 million in 2010/11, before the Conservatives came to power.
The former Labour MP used his appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival to call for increases to child tax credit – which he first introduced in 2003 as Chancellor – as part of the “most cost-effective” measures to reverse the trend.
He said: “Kirkcaldy – where I grew up – now has the fifth worst area for child poverty in Scotland – and the worst outside Glasgow. In East Kirkcaldy 40 per cent of children are in poverty but soon, on current projections, every second child – more than 50 per cent – will be in poverty.
“This means that without remedial action the prospects for nearly half a generation of children are today in tatters, with Westminster and Holyrood governments shamefully ignoring this national disgrace and the silent suffering and sorrows of left-out millions – and simply hoping the children, and the numbers, will remain invisible.”
He will add: “A major report by the Institute for Public Policy Research has argued that the most effective means of reducing relative child poverty would be to combine a living wage and higher child benefit with an increase in the child element of tax credits.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “We are committed to actions to help eradicate child poverty in Scotland by 2030, and we have outlined key measures as to how that goal can be achieved.”