So SNP has a plan to wipe out child poverty? You could have fooled me

Why do they do it? Why do politicians make promises they don’t know how to keep?

That’s a question that dogs the Scottish Government, which has a record of making a very big deal of its promises and then failing to deliver on them. Edited highlights include the promise to cut climate emissions by 75 per cent by 2030, issued amid much self-congratulation but since scrapped; and “substantially eliminating” the attainment gap, courtesy of Nicola Sturgeon, who asked to be judged on it and then never came close to achieving it.

John Swinney’s big promise, from the moment he became SNP leader, was eliminating child poverty. His language is a shade more circumspect than Sturgeon’s. He says child poverty is the Scottish Government’s “single most important objective”, which leaves a little more wiggle room, but he’s trumpeted it so often and so loudly that it’s fair to say it’s his government’s defining promise.

The Scottish Government is miles off meeting this promise. There is a legally binding target for child poverty to be under 10 per cent by 2030/31, but we are already well behind even the interim 2024 target of 18 per cent. The latest figures put child poverty in Scotland on 22 per cent.

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The numbers will improve further, due to the UK Government’s decision to scrap the two-child limit (not Mr Swinney’s doing), but without Herculean efforts and a whole lot more cash, Scotland is going to miss its child poverty targets, potentially by a long way. The Scottish Child Payment has made a difference and campaigners want to see it increased to £40, but the Scottish Government has so far refused to commit. Cutting the payment once it’s been raised is politically well-nigh impossible, so raising it in effect means committing Scottish Government income in perpetuity, something they are reluctant to do.

You can understand this reasoning, but it does beg a very important question: without further large hikes to the SCP, or other similarly significant bumps to social security aimed at families, how did ministers think they were going to eradicate child poverty?

There are other policy tools besides the Child Payment, but action on these has been wobbly. You can help tackle child poverty with more safe, affordable social homes and more employability support, but budgets for both were cut as recently as two years ago, with both still lagging behind where they need to be.

You can help tackle child poverty with affordable childcare, including wraparound care for primary school children, but it’s just not happening at scale.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar was wrong-footed by SNP leader John Swinney's announcement last winter that his government was going mitigate the effects of the two-child limit (Image: Andrew Milligan)

Conclusion? The Scottish Government doesn’t seem to have a clear plan for eradicating child poverty. Campaigners are urging radical measures in this week’s budget, calling it “one of the few remaining chances for action to be taken”. We’ll see. Should we be angered by the lack of a decisive plan? Or should we reluctantly accept that modest improvements are all we can realistically expect, given fiscal constraints?

The forgiving view would be that Mr Swinney is motivated by trying to make things better, that all politicians make eye-catching promises they can’t necessarily achieve because otherwise no one would vote for them, and that targets are useful and motivating even if they are never reached.

On this reading, John Swinney and his government should be congratulated for the progress they have made on child poverty so far and we should shruggingly accept that they were never going to reach the actual target.

But while there may be some justification in that, it also lets the Scottish Government off the hook for misleading voters. If we stop demanding that ministers have a credible plan for delivering on their promises, and accept lacklustre performance, then we are accepting they’ll never achieve very much. It’s a licence for them to avoid difficult decisions and thorny structural problems. And besides, politicians aren’t just motivated by angels. It’s possible to care deeply about child poverty while at the same time being tribal and using targets for political reasons.

A more balanced view would be that John Swinney wanted to take action on child poverty for noble reasons but knew all along he’d be unlikely to meet his target, which might explain the lack of a realistic plan for doing so.

It’s no coincidence that his choice of that issue made Labour squirm. Last winter, Mr Swinney announced that his government was going to start mitigating the effects of the two-child limit in Scotland – something his government could have chosen to do at any point in the previous seven years but hadn’t – which appeared to be designed as much to embarrass Scottish Labour, which hadn’t yet committed to getting rid of the cap, as to tackle child poverty. Would it be going too far to sense complacency among ministers when it comes to their own promises? You do wonder.

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It can seem as if what really matters to them is whether Scotland is outperforming England on a given metric and that this takes precedence over other considerations. So long as the numbers on NHS spending or teacher pay are better in Scotland than England, then the SNP often seem satisfied, even if the difference is marginal.

It’s why in Scotland, a small annual difference of up to £28.27 in the amount that taxpayers on less than £30,300 pay north and south of the border is used by the Scottish Government to insist that most people pay less tax in Scotland than England. Looked at narrowly that’s true, but they neglect to mention the slight nature of the difference and that anyone earning over that rather low threshold pays more. Doing better than England is terribly important to SNP ministers. Child poverty is substantially worse in England than Scotland, after so many years of domestic government by the Conservatives. As long as that’s the case, Scottish ministers may feel privately that they are doing fine on the issue.

But that won’t impress those who feel bitterly disappointed at the ongoing lack of a roadmap to achieving that headline promise. Today’s budget needs to move things forward significantly. Is Mr Swinney’s commitment a hollow boast? Without spelling out exactly how he intends to consign child poverty to history, many will conclude that it is.

Rebecca McQuillan is a journalist specialising in politics and Scottish affairs. She can be found on Bluesky at @becmcq.bsky.social and on X at @BecMcQ