Scrapping the two-child limit is a welcome step, but unless Scotland’s political parties use the looming budget and election to commit to bold, concrete action, child poverty will remain shamefully high, says Chris Birt of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
In November’s budget there was an unusual, and welcome, outbreak of consensus between Scotland’s two governments. By using the budget to scrap the cruel two-child limit, the UK Government saved the Scottish Government from having to do so in its forthcoming budget.
Scrapping the policy was of course the right decision, as the two-child cap was fundamentally unfair and a cause of poverty across the UK. In essence, it punished children simply by virtue of having a brother or a sister.
Labour politicians have praised the fact that the UK Government’s budget will lead to the largest fall in child poverty in a single parliamentary session.
Similarly, prior to the UK budget, SNP ministers often cited analysis from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) that Scotland was the only part of the UK with falling child poverty.
Neither claim is wrong, but they don’t change the stark fact that child poverty in Scotland is unacceptably high and must be urgently addressed.
The national target of cutting child poverty to below 10 per cent by 2030 was set in 2017 with unanimous support from all parties, yet based on current commitments, levels will still be around 10 percentage points above this by the end of the decade. That’s around 100,000 children in poverty who should’ve been lifted out of it.
We are now only a matter of weeks away from the Scottish budget on January 13, and only a few months out from the 2026 Holyrood election. It is time for our political parties to put their money where their mouth is and be bold.
The UK Government has finally acted by abolishing the two-child limit, but that was going to be scrapped in Scotland anyway by the Scottish Government. Getting rid of one stigmatising, poverty-inducing policy is a good thing, but it cannot be the height of Scotland’s ambition in reducing the hardship that so many children face.
John Swinney previously promised to spend the £155 million his government had committed to ending the two-child limit in Scotland on further reducing child poverty.
How he does so will be under close scrutiny in the forthcoming budget. One of his options is to increase the Scottish Child Payment, which would be the most direct way of putting money in the pockets of struggling families.
To be clear, though, that level of commitment alone will not be enough to put us on a trajectory to meet the child poverty reduction targets.
READ MORE:
- Scotland Demands Better: It’s Time to Act on Child Poverty
- Two-child benefit cap officially scrapped in UK budget
- Charities in fresh call for Scottish Child Payment increase
Pressure is also on Scottish Labour in terms of what its pitch will be to the electorate in May. The party’s MSPs have rightly celebrated their colleagues in Westminster’s decision to scrap the two-child limit, but how do they propose to capitalise on that progress with commitments within the Scottish Parliament’s significant powers?
Just as the SNP cannot rest on its laurels in the forthcoming election having introduced the Scottish Child Payment, neither can Scottish Labour rely on the actions of the UK Government.
Ultimately this is a question for all the parties standing in May’s election: what are you going to do about child poverty, and what commitments will you make in your manifestos?
Our recent Poverty in Scotland 2025 report found that child poverty levels are largely the same as when the targets were set eight years ago. Radical action is clearly needed, and it’s easy to see why many people are feeling frustrated about our politics.
If we are serious about meeting these targets and improving the lives of all children in Scotland, political parties must be ambitious and set out exactly how they plan to do this.
To date, change has been too slow and has lacked the necessary momentum. A manifesto commitment to meeting the child poverty reduction targets would be just a start. What we need are clear policies outlining radical action on child poverty.
There are so many big questions that need answering. For example, we need to know what political parties are planning for Scotland’s social security system, how they are going to expand the childcare offer for low-income families, and how are they going to invest in affordable housing. Not to mention how they are going to support more parents into work and into better-paid work.
It’s all very well for politicians to promote the benefits of work to reducing poverty, but they need to act to knock down the barriers that prevent parents from both securing work and getting a decent income from that work.
At the moment, in terms of publicly stated positions, we are looking at a pretty blank page, and that needs to change.
The JRF’s Meeting the Moment document sets out the kinds of radical action needed to meet Scotland’s child poverty reduction targets in the next parliament.
Evidence shows we need greater investment in social security, together with a paradigm shift in how we support people to reach their potential in the labour market.
Politicians need to show people that they can deliver change, and what we’ve set out in Meeting the Moment is the scale of change necessary to radically reduce child poverty.
The publication of the manifestos will be a big moment, as if they are not up to scratch, the conclusion must be that our political parties lack the confidence and drive to ease the hardship that so many in Scotland face.
The upcoming election is a huge opportunity for the next cohort of MSPs. It’s a chance to go to the public with an offer of generational significance, one that will change what it means to grow up in Scotland.
Nearly one in four children in poverty is shocking, but it is fixable. Anyone who aspires to be First Minister after May’s election needs to be able to tell the voters what they plan to do about it.
Chris Birt is associate director for Scotland at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
