Professor John Robertson OBA

Thanks to Dottie for alerting us to this.

In the Guardian yesterday, the above and:

Almost 100% of children in 73 neighbourhoods in England are living in income-deprived families, according to new measures that factor in the impact of soaring rents.

Changes to official measures reveal the neighbourhoods where in effect all children live in low-income households. Of these, 31 are in inner London boroughs with high housing costs such as Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Haringey and Westminster.

The new indices of multiple deprivation confirm that attempts at levelling up have failed to shift stubbornly high levels of deprivation in so-called left-behind towns and cities in the Midlands and north of England.

Blackpool, Middlesbrough, Burnley, Manchester and Birmingham are the top five most deprived local authority areas. At a neighbourhood level, Jaywick in Nigel Farage’s Clacton constituency in Essex tops the ranking for the fourth time in a row.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/30/almost-all-children-in-73-areas-of-england-live-in-low-income-households

There is child poverty in Scotland, it remains too high and there are some areas where it is as high as 36% but there is nothing, nothing, in Scotland that compares even closely to the above horrific claims.

Thanks to years of SNP policy development such as the child payment, free prescriptions for all, lower rents and council tax, far more social housing, free schools meals, and other ones not jumping into my head this morning, child poverty is at 22% and predicted to fall rather than increase, uniquely in the UK. It’s a staggering 31% in England and in Wales (after decades of Labour-rule), more than 40% higher.¹

Are there any parts of Scotland where almost all children live in poverty?

No, there are no parts of Scotland where almost all children (e.g., 90% or more) live in poverty, based on the latest available data from 2023/24. However, child poverty rates are severely high in certain urban areas, particularly in Glasgow, where over one-third of children (36%) are in relative poverty after housing costs. This affects approximately 36,000 children in Glasgow City alone, making it the hardest-hit local authority by a significant margin.

Key Findings on Child Poverty in Scotland.

National average: 22% of children (around 240,000) live in relative poverty after housing costs, according to official Scottish Government statistics. spice-spotlight.scot +1

Highest rates by local authority (2023/24 data from End Child Poverty Coalition and Joseph Rowntree Foundation):

Glasgow City: 36%

Clackmannanshire: 28%

Dundee City: 26%

North Ayrshire: ~25% (based on prior trends; exact 2023/24 figure aligns closely) ^{2, 3}

I know, much, much to do but only the SNP and the Greens care enough to do something about it.

Sources:

1. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-below-average-income-for-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2024/households-below-average-income-great-britain-financial-year-ending-2024
2. https://spice-spotlight.scot/2025/06/05/local-child-poverty-statistics/
3. https://x.com/i/grok?conversation=1984212055910457660