Humza Yousaf admits meeting child poverty targets will be ‘challenging’

The First Minister has been criticised by anti-poverty charities following the Scottish Budget

Humza Yousaf has admitted it will be “challenging” for Scotland to meet its targets on tackling child poverty.

It came as the First Minister welcomed new analysis estimating 100,000 children will be kept out of relative poverty this year as a result of Scottish Government policies. However, Mr Yousaf conceded that reaching wider targets by 2030 was “going to be difficult”.

He said he understood the “frustrations” of anti-poverty charities after they strongly criticised his Scottish Budget, which was passed in Holyrood on Tuesday.

First Minister Humza Yousaf holds a press conference at Drum Brae Library Hub in Edinburgh. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Oxfam Scotland said the plans, which include a council tax freeze and cuts to areas such as affordable housing, risk “bringing to a screeching halt – and if anything, throwing into reverse – action to tackle poverty”, while Shelter Scotland said strategies for housing and homelessness were “failing”.

The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 sets in statute interim targets to be met in 2023/24, with final targets to be met by 2030. These include that fewer than 18 per cent of children are living in families in relative poverty in 2023/24, reducing to fewer than 10 per cent by 2030.

New Scottish Government analysis projects the relative child poverty rate will fall from 23 per cent in 2021/22 to around 16 per cent by 2023/24, before rising to 18 per cent the following year and falling to 17 per cent by 2026/27.

The document, which models the cumulative impact of policies such as the Scottish Child Payment, indicates the relative poverty rate will be 10 percentage points lower than it would otherwise have been as a result of Scottish Government interventions.

Humza Yousaf

Speaking after joining a Book Bug session at Drum Brae Library Hub in Edinburgh on Wednesday, Mr Yousaf highlighted measures the UK government could take to further alleviate child poverty. These include removing the two-child limit and reinstating the family element in Universal Credit, as well as introducing an “essentials guarantee” to ensure Universal Credit is enough to meet people’s basic needs.

Asked about the 2030 target, Mr Yousaf said: “It’s going to be difficult. It’s going to be challenging. That’s why I’m also calling on the UK government to help not just here in Scotland, but right across the UK, lifting the two-child limit, introducing the essentials guarantee, making some changes to how Universal Credit is awarded.

"These actions could, for example, cumulatively, help to lift a further 40,000 children in Scotland out of poverty, so that would greatly help on our way to those overall targets, let alone the interim targets.”

He added: “We continue to be ambitious in terms of not just the interim targets, the overall target, but we would be greatly aided in that endeavour by, of course, the restoration of cuts to our budget, but also by the UK government, who still continue to hold many of the levers around welfare and other levers, to help to lift children out of poverty.”

Mr Yousaf continued: “We set those targets, and we are going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that we achieve those overall targets, and the fact that the interim target is within reach is a good sign.

"But while we are in this constitutional set-up, the UK government could be doing more to reduce child poverty, and poverty more generally, right across the UK, including here in Scotland. They could do that, actually, at the drop of a hat.”

Asked if the targets were reliant on the UK government doing more, Mr Yousaf said actions down south “could have an impact on our targets”.

He told journalists: “I do not have a crystal ball in terms of what the UK government will do. If the UK government completely decide to scrap particular welfare benefits, take an absolute hatchet to the welfare budget even more than they have done already, that will clearly have an impact on our budget.”

Mr Yousaf defended the Scottish Budget, which was harshly criticised by charities and opposition politicians after being passed on Tuesday.

Asked about the comments by Shelter and Oxfam, he said: “I understand their frustrations. I hope they understand the real constraints within our own budget, within our own finances, given the significant level of cut from the UK government.”

The First Minister said he accepted cuts to the affordable housing budget would “undoubtedly” have an impact.

However, he said his deputy, Shona Robison, had made it “absolutely and abundantly clear that should there be additional capital coming our way” as a result of Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Spring Budget next week, then the affordable housing supply programme would be “the first priority”.

Elsewhere, Mr Yousaf said he hoped to move “at a quicker pace” on his party’s long-standing pledge to reform council tax. The SNP has pledged since it took office in 2007 to reform the levy, but no concrete proposals had ever made it to Holyrood.

Mr Yousaf told journalists there had been meetings with “various different parties and stakeholders”, but refused to give a timetable on when reform proposals could be released.

He said: “We’ll work with other parties in relation to reform of the council tax and try to get that reform moving at a quicker pace than, to be frank, it has moved in the last few years. But I couldn’t commit exactly to a timetable because discussions are ongoing with various different parties and stakeholders involved.”