For Bonnie Quinn, a weekly cash payment of £25 has proved a lifeline during the UK’s cost of living crisis.
For a single mother from Porbeth, south-west Edinburgh, Childcare Scotland allowed her to provide packed lunches for her son, who refuses school meals because of his autism, and to work as a catering assistant.
“(It) has really helped me, allowing me to go to work and make sure my younger son has everything while I’m at work,” Quinn said of the government aid she’s received since 2021. “It’s been a lifesaver.” “
Supporters of the scheme say the funding is reducing child poverty in Scotland to levels below those in the rest of the UK. They also said the initiative could become a global cash payment model for poverty eradication.
But Liz Ditchburn, emeritus professor at the University of Glasgow’s Adam Smith Business School and a former civil servant who held senior positions in the Scottish and British governments, said few outside Scotland were aware of such a “bold policy intervention” .
“I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve mentioned Scottish Child Benefit to colleagues and friends elsewhere in the UK… and been told they’d never heard of it,” she wrote in a blog published by the think tank David Hume Institute wrote.
Quinn’s 6-year-old son is one of 316,000 children to benefit, with Edinburgh saying the payments have helped lift some 90,000 teenagers out of poverty this year.
The payment means a family of four children is entitled to £5,200 a year, on top of other benefits received by families with children under 16, which is unavailable to their peers in England.
In Scotland, every child under 16 is entitled to £25 a week in addition to “qualifying” benefits such as Universal Credit or income support.
Child Benefit, introduced in 2021 at £10 per child per week, is one of seven benefits unique to Scotland. Rising to £20 in April 2022 and £25 in November.
Supporters of Scottish independence see its success as an example of what Scotland could do differently if it broke with the United Kingdom.
The payment will cost the government £405m in 2023-24, according to official estimates, and evidence that it is reducing poverty is likely to boost the crisis-hit Scottish National Party’s support at Rutherglen and Hamilton West this week. opportunity to hold a by-election.
Morag Traynor, a professor at the University of Glasgow and a former deputy chair of the government committee, said: “As a result of this payment, child poverty levels in Scotland will fall faster (and) to a greater extent than in other parts of the UK, particularly England.” Inequality and poverty. “This is a game-changer for Scotland.”
But some campaigners and charities say Scotland’s First Minister Humza Youssef is not doing enough to deliver on his pledge to reduce poverty.
Magic Breakfast, an organization that provides breakfast clubs, criticized the Youssef government for failing to fulfill a promise made in 2020 to provide free breakfast to all primary school children.
Meanwhile, Child Poverty Action said Scotland’s child benefit needs to increase to at least £40 to meet its interim child poverty target.
According to the Scottish Government, Scotland’s child poverty rate in 2019-2022 was 6 percentage points lower than in the rest of the UK.
Figures from the Welsh Government show that England had the highest child poverty rate in 2020-22 at 31%, with Scotland at 24% and Wales at 28%. The proportion in Northern Ireland is 22%.
Edinburgh said the gap was expected to widen further due to child benefit and other Scotland-specific welfare policies.
In the U.S., the child tax credit, a similar plan from the Biden administration in response to the pandemic, has been welcomed by policy experts.
The introduction of direct subsidies of up to $300 per month to children in July 2021 was hailed by analysts as a huge success, lifting nearly 4 million children out of poverty, according to research from Columbia University.
But despite support for the plan, opinions were divided over whether it should be made permanent and it was eventually scrapped.
Meanwhile, the UK government has been criticized for its cap on child benefit payments, which limits tax credits and universal credit for the first two children in a family. There are currently no direct cash payments for children in England like the Scottish scheme.
The British government emphasized: “Since 2010, 400,000 children have been lifted out of absolute poverty after housing costs. There are approximately 7 million families in the UK (including Scotland) receiving child benefit.”
Edinburgh’s devolved government aims to reduce the number of children living in relatively poor households – defined as children with incomes below 60% of the UK median – from 24% to under 18% by 2023-24. point. The 2030 target is below 10%.
While Edinburgh expects to miss its target next year, with poverty falling to 19%, it estimates that without policy intervention the figure will reach 28%.
Danny Dorling, professor of geography at the University of Oxford, said the child benefit would reduce the Gini coefficient, a statistical measure of inequality, for children in Scotland to 0.25 this year, after the benefit increased to 25 in November The pound was previously at 0.33.
“It may not sound like a big transformation, but in just 12 months Scotland has gone from one of the most unequal places for children to live in Europe to one of the most equal,” he said.
The SNP hopes the policy will improve perceptions of its capabilities after 16 years in power and a recent crisis triggered by an ongoing police investigation into its finances.
Ahead of the October 5 by-election, Youssef said policies such as child benefit should make the SNP “the first choice for families”.
However, this message may not necessarily reach voters. A recent Ipsos survey showed that 48% of voters believe the SNP has done a “poor” job in improving living standards for low-income people, with only 25% agreeing.
The party, facing a stagnant economy and a budget deficit of 9% of gross domestic product in 2022-23, may struggle to satisfy critics.
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