JOHN Swinney will fail to eradicate poverty by the end of the decade despite his pledge to make it his “central mission” of government, a report has found.
One in five children in Scotland are still expected to be in poverty by 2029, meaning legal targets to reduce it to below 10 per cent are highly likely to be missed.
But the anti-poverty charity Joseph Rowntree Foundation said that Scotland would be further ahead in tackling the problem when compared to the rest of the UK due to higher benefits spending.
It came as John Swinney hosted a round-table event focused on child poverty in Bute House – alongside social security secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville.
But associate director for Scotland at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Chris Birt, said the stats show there is still a “mountain to climb”.
He said: “The First Minister has said eradicating child poverty is his government’s number one priority, but these figures show just how far we are from that day.”
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The report predicts child poverty rates in Scotland will drop to just under 20 per cent, down from 21.5 per cent, based on modelling by the Institute of Public Policy Research think tank.
While England and Wales will see their poverty levels increase to 23 per cent and 28 per cent respectively.
Nats ministers are set to spend £200million a year on scrapping the two-child benefit cap – on top of £1.5billion of extra benefits spending including the £26.50 per week Scottish Child Payment.
The Scottish Government has binding targets to reduce relative child poverty to 18 per cent by 2023-24 and to 10 per cent by 2030-31, alongside a drop in absolute poverty to 14 per cent by 2023-24 and 5 per cent by 2030-31.
Figures assessing these targets – which use a different methodology from the JRF projections and as such cannot be compared – will be released in March.
Scottish Tory spokeswoman for children, Roz McCall, said: “It looks like John Swinney’s central mission to eradicate child poverty is going to join the list of key pledges the SNP have failed to deliver on.”
The Scottish Government were contacted for comment.
