SCRAPPING the Tory’s two-child limit on benefits would be the most effective way to tackle child poverty in Scotland, a new report has claimed.
Researchers at the Scottish Parliament’s Information Centre (Spice) also said mitigating cuts to welfare first proposed by former chancellor George Osborne could lead to a 5% drop in the number of children living in relative poverty.
Currently, around 240,000 children live in poverty in Scotland – almost a quarter of all under-18s. By 2023-2024, it’s projected to rise to 27%.
Spice’s report said making changes to Universal Credit, including scrapping the cap, increasing the child element by 80% to £417 per month and re-introducing a family element of £545 per year would work better than either reducing the starter rate of income tax or topping-up child benefit.
All three of those policies would, Spice reported, cost approximately £800m to implement.
READ MORE: SNP demand Tories scrap two-child cap Universal Credit scheme
Increasing child benefit payments by £18.45 – substantially more than the £5 a week advocated by Labour and a number of charities – would lead to a fall in child poverty from a projected 27% to 24% by 2023-24, the report said, while making changes to Universal Credit would see it fall to 22% .
Spice said the changes to Universal Credit “considered are specifically targeted at poorer households with children so have a larger impact for those households at the bottom of the income distribution and the biggest impact on child poverty”.
But topping up child benefit would see money going to all children, rather than being “directed at poorer families”.
The analysis said abolishing the 19p starter rate of income tax would only benefit families where at least one person is working, and could, if anything, risk increasing levels of child poverty.
Spice also warned such a change could result in families losing out on some means-tested benefits.
But even if child poverty in 2023-24 falls to 22%, it will still far exceed the Scottish Government’s target of 18%.
That goal was set as part of the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017, brought in last November.
The legislation also said that less than 14% of children in Scotland should be living in absolute poverty.
Last week, the Resolution Foundation warned that the Scottish Government is in danger of missing its own child poverty targets by more than 100,000 children.
The foundation’s Adam Corlett said that while the rise was “almost entirely driven by UK-wide decisions”, politicians north of the Border were not “powerless to respond”.
Scottish Government Communities Secretary Aileen Campbell said ministers were committed to mitigating the worst of Westminster’s cuts, and insisted that “tackling – and ultimately eradicating – child poverty in Scotland” was a priority.
“In our Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, we committed to introducing an income supplement to provide additional financial support to low income families. We are currently exploring options to reach the greatest number of children in poverty, ensuring we top up incomes sufficiently to lift those households out of poverty.
“We do this despite the UK Government’s policies that will reduce social security spend in Scotland by £3.7 billion by 2020-21 which is pushing people into poverty.”
A spokesman for the UK Department for Work and Pensions defended the benefit limit: “The two-child policy ensures fairness by asking families on benefits to face the same financial decisions as people supporting themselves solely through work.”
He continued: “Scotland has significant welfare powers to make further changes and can top-up existing benefits, pay discretionary payments and create entirely new benefits altogether.”
Labour spokesperson for the eradication of poverty and inequality, Elaine Smith, said the Scottish Government needed to bring forward it’s plan to introduce an income supplement by 2022.
“Ending child poverty should be the central focus of the Government – it’s not about pulling one singular policy lever but using all the powers available.”
John Dickie from the Child Poverty Action Group agreed. “The Scottish Government must act with the utmost urgency,” he said.
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