Why the SNP's claim it has lifted 100,000 children out of poverty is not all it seems

No-one is disputing John Swinney’s commitment to eradicating child poverty - but the Scottish Government is being fed some humble pie over its u-turn over free school meals.

Before the u-turn was revealed through finding what was missing from the programme for government, the Scottish Government’s messaging was that the blueprint was going to hone in on tackling child poverty. 

Read more: John Swinney shelves commitment to free school meals for all Scotland primary pupils

There was even speculation that the SNP’s flagship policy, the Scottish Child Payment, could be boosted. It was pretty evident there was no extra cash to do this, but the rhetoric from the Scottish Government that child poverty was being prioritised, then maybe it would find space for some funding.

The SNP’s argument is that they have no choice but to shelf its pledge for free school meals for all primary pupils because Westminster has starved Holyrood of funding. There is truth in that argument and the funding settlement the Scottish Government receives from the UK government does not look to be sustainable any more.

First Minister John Swinney during a visit to Castlebrae Community High School, in Niddrie, Edinburgh, to meet teachers and students. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/PA Wire | PA

But like the SNP told Labour it made a choice not to remove the two-child benefit cap at Westminster, it is also true the SNP made a choice not to prioritise universal free school meals.

The decision is made worse by the SNP singing its own praises on child poverty for some time. To be clear, Scotland is off track on its own child poverty targets.

Last week, before the free school meals vow was axed, John Dickie, the director of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland told me that “the scale and pace of action is not yet nearly enough to meet statutory child poverty targets, never mind eradicate child poverty altogether”.

But throughout the general election campaign, the SNP boasted that it had lifted 100,000 children out of poverty. But that is not all that it seems.

The 100,000 statistic comes from Scottish Government modelling published back in February that states “Scottish Government policies will keep 100,000 children out of relative poverty and 70,000 children out of absolute poverty in 2024-25”, adding that “with the respective child poverty rates 10 percentage points and seven percentage points lower than they would have been without these policies”.

It is quite a different thing to have lifted families out of poverty than to point at policies and claiming they would have prevented people falling into poverty without them.

Earlier this year, Labour took such offence over the claim that the party’s MSP, Paul O’Kane, wrote to the UK Statistics Authority over it.

In response, Sir Robert Chote, the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, highlighted “potential confusion” by the way the statistics had been presented.

He added: “Comparing the number of children living in relative poverty from 2004-07 (pre-SNP) to the latest datapoint of 2020-23 shows a decrease of 10,000 children (250,000 to 240,000). For children living in absolute poverty the decrease is 40,000 children (250,000 to 210,000).”

The SNP’s aims of eradicating child poverty should not be criticised, but given the free school meals u-turn was not announced transparently and there fudging of statistics is potentially disingenuous, perhaps there is work to do done on the messaging around what is a crucial issue.