A £100 MILLION fund will be set up to help hard-up Scots this winter, Nicola Sturgeon will announce today.

The support is to include direct payments of £100 to all families with children in receipt of free school meals.

The First Minister will say the coronavirus pandemic has shown that it should no longer be accepted that problems with poverty and inequality are “inevitable or insoluble”.

The action comes in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, which has seen many lose their jobs or have their incomes cut as a result of restrictions brought in to contain the virus.

Curbs have included the closure of non-essential shops, as well as bars, restaurants and hairdressers during the spring lockdown. These restrictions are currently in place across most of the west and central Scotland.

The new £100m winter fund for low-income households will provide those in need with cash to help “pay their fuel bills and make sure children don’t go hungry”, Sturgeon will tell the SNP annual conference when she makes her closing St Andrew’s Day speech today.

In addition to this, the fund will help pay to get older people connected online and provide help for the homeless.

While the First Minister will stress Scotland does not have to be independent for the Scottish Government to “start doing the right things”, she will point out that Westminster’s control over much of the social security system north of the Border makes it harder for ministers to act.

Sturgeon will insist that following the Covid-19 crisis, her party wants to rebuild the country “with kindness, compassion, fairness, equality and enterprise at its heart – and not one made in the image of Boris Johnson and his band of Brexiteers”.

She will state: “We must make sure we are working to the right plan, with all the tools we need to do the job.”

In February, the Scottish Government is bringing in a £10-a-week payment for children in low-income families – with Sturgeon to say that Scotland is the “only part of the UK” to take such action. But she will add: “I know that for families struggling now, February is still a long way off.

“So I am announcing today a £100m package to bridge that gap, and help others struggling most with the impact of Covid over the winter months.

“It will include money to help people pay their fuel bills and make sure children don’t go hungry.

“It will offer additional help for the homeless, and fund an initiative to get older people online and connected.

“And, most importantly of all, it will provide a cash grant of £100 for every family with children in receipt of free school meals.

“The money will be paid before Christmas and families can use it for whatever will help them through the winter. That could be food, new shoes or a winter coat for the kids.

“Families will know best what they need. That’s not for government to decide.”

She will declare: “Initiatives like this are not just about providing practical help to those who need it most – they are an expression of our values and of the kind of country we are seeking to build.”

Her speech will close the party’s annual conference, which is being held remotely because of the virus restrictions.

The event takes place less than five months ahead of the Scottish Parliament elections in May, with the First Minister hoping to return her party to a record fourth term in office.

Delegates will be keen to hear of any updates on how she will propose to progress independence, with 14 successive polls suggesting most voters now back Scotland leaving the UK and becoming an independent state.

In September, Sturgeon told Holyrood that she will introduce a bill setting out the terms, the timescale and the question which would be posed in a new vote before the end of the current parliament in March.

Last week she said a new referendum should take place in the “earlier part of the next parliament”.

However, she stressed that her current focus was on steering Scotland through the coronavirus pandemic and her priority just now was the “health and wellbeing” of the country.

“I intend to say more about this before the election in our manifesto, but we are still in a global pandemic that I feel a bit more hopeful about seeing the end of than I did even just a couple of months ago,” she told the BBC.

“There’s still a lot of uncertainty ahead. I’m a life-long believer and campaigner and advocate for independence, but right now I’m also the First Minister of Scotland.

“My responsibility is to the health and wellbeing of the country and trying to steer it through a pandemic and I’m very focused on that.”

Her speech will follow a conference debate on Scotland’s place in the world.