In the Guardian today:

More than a fifth of all “austerity generation” British children have been scarred by poverty for at least half their childhood, a direct legacy of the welfare benefit cuts imposed by Conservative governments in recent years, research reveals. The proportion of children born after 2013 who spent at least six of their first 11 years of life in hardship surged after ministers froze working age benefits levels and imposed policies such as the two-child limit, it found.

Austerity policies, which drastically shrank annual welfare spending by tens of billions a year and took thousands of pounds a year out of low-income family budgets, effectively pitched hundreds of thousands more children into sustained poverty. The University of Oxford study said the austerity-era growth in children exposed to poverty for most of their formative years was a “significant social problem” that would cause long-term harms to their health, education and life chances.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/apr/13/uk-austerity-children-scarred-poverty-study-conservatives

Neither the Guardian nor the full research report make any reference to Scotland. Here’s what they missed:

The above from the Joseph Rowntree Trust is shocking. That in only Scotland will child poverty have reduced by the next Westminster election in 2029, is deep condemnation of the governments in the other three nations. What this means is that child poverty in Wales will be 57.8% higher and, in England, it will 44.5% higher, than in Scotland.

Remember that these percentage differences mean that more than a million out of the current total of nearly 4 million in England and more than 100 000 out of the quarter of a million in Wales, could be taken out of poverty if SNP policies were applied there – especially the Child Payment of £27.15 per child per week, lower rents, lower council tax, free bus fares, free prescriptions, free tuition and others.