UK Gov deserves little praise for ending disgraceful two-child benefit cap

The UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves is finally lifting the child benefit cap from April next year. This was driving children in lower-paid, larger families deeper and deeper into unacceptable poverty and deprivation. The news that the chancellor has finally lifted it should make a small change. But it is too little and too late and nowhere near enough to fix this. 

The UK 31% of children experiencing poverty is very high for such a comparatively wealthy country. Scotland is doing better but it is still far too high at 22%. 

Independent Scandinavian countries have levels of child poverty that are less than half of Scotland’s. But these countries do not specifically target child poverty - they don’t need to. Child poverty is low because so is poverty, generally. Those counties are much more equal than Scotland with prosperity and security being shared across society, rather than being lapped up by the wealthiest. 

Believe in Scotland founder Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp said: “Being a part of the UK makes reducing child poverty in Scotland far harder. Take the fact that before the 2024 General Election the Labour Party promised to cut your energy bills by £300 but instead they have soared by an average £187 (more for the parts of Scotland that rely most on electricity,)  with another unacceptable rise in January.

“Now 34% of Scots say they can't now afford to heat their homes. That is a major contributor not only to child poverty but child ill health. The Scottish Government is doing what it can with limited powers and budget to mitigate the child poverty that is created by UK Government policy. 

“But, if Scotland was independent like our Nordic neighbours we would be able to properly tackle the root causes of child poverty and build a stronger, fairer, more prosperous Scotland.” 

“As an independent country, Scotland could focus on creating a Wellbeing Economic Approach and end the systemic poverty which still affects far too many children in Scotland.”

News coverage of the move will not mention that Scotland’s extortionate energy bills are making the fight against poverty much harder. Energy market regulation and pricing policy is outside the scope of the Scottish government's powers. With independence, Scotland would have lower-cost energy which would end fuel poverty and boost the economy. 

UK Child Poverty is getting worse

Child poverty in the UK is rising up the international league tables and it is now much higher than in comparable European countries. 

Scots can look at other similar-sized countries, many without Scotland’s wealth of natural resources, and be confident that an independent Scotland would be able to do much more to end the kind of deep poverty which damages children’s life chances. 

A report from UNICEF provided us with comparable child poverty statistics for most advanced economies. It showed the rapid progress the UK has made in terms of child poverty - in the wrong direction. With a rise of 20% in a decade, the UK is doing twice as badly on this metric as any other country in the report. 

The UK in absolute terms is now ranked far below many countries that are less wealthy in child poverty terms. UNICEF found it ranked ahead of only Turkey and Colombia.

In many of the Scandinavian countries that have comparable geography and population size to Scotland, about one in ten children live in poverty. Denmark is at the top of the list at just under one in ten.

Conclusion

It is good news that the UK government is finally (from April next year) lifting the damaging two-child cap that discriminates against children in larger families and generates unacceptable levels of child poverty. 

That will have some impact on the absolutely shocking levels of child poverty in the UK. The Scottish government was already planning to mitigate the cap in Scotland. The Scottish Child Benefit, a targeted payment to help children in the most deprived families, should ensure that the Scottish levels continue to fall faster. 

But Scottish families are still counting the cost of other Westminster policies that drive poverty - such as setting unfair energy prices so that private companies can bleed Scots dry just to heat their homes.

As part of the UK, Scotland can only partially mitigate Westminster’s policies. It doesn’t hold the levers of power. The appalling rates of child poverty in the UK are the result of UK Government choices to prioritise greed rather than wellbeing. An independent Scotland will be free to make different choices and to learn from the example of other nations which are tackling child poverty.