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SCOTTISH LABOUR leader Kezia Dugdale pledged to heed the call of anti-poverty campaigners and families yesterday in agreeing to use potential new powers to tackle child poverty by increasing child benefit.
Speaking at the Scottish Labour conference in Perth, Ms Dugdale said that the Child Poverty Bill now going through Holyrood “should take meaningful action to combat poverty.”
Currently 220,000 Scottish children live in poverty. Scottish Labour says its plans to increase child benefit by £240 a year by the end of this parliament would mean up to 30,000 fewer children living in poverty once the changes are fully implemented.
Plans to delay access to the universal credit health element until age 22 have triggered fierce opposition from disabled people’s groups, who warn it would deepen poverty and entrench discrimination against young disabled people under the guise of ‘encouraging work.’ DYLAN MURPHY reports
We cannot refuse to abolish the unjustifiable two-child benefit cap that pushes children into poverty while finding billions of pounds for defence spending — the membership and the public expect better from Labour, writes JON TRICKETT MP
