From Professor Danny Dorling of Oxford University in 2023:

The best news story hopefully is there at the moment. I haven’t seen any news reports. Has there been a camera opportunity. Is Camila and Charles? Are they in Balmoral? Yeah I think they are. OK. Where they can celebrate because they’re in the only part of the Kingdom which has done the most dramatic thing. You almost certainly know a small Scottish Child Payment was brought in during the worst of the cost of living crisis starting £10 if you had a child age six or under. Not much.

November last year it was increased to £25 a week for every child under 16 if you claim any form of benefit for a family of three. Think of those children going hungry in England with a brother and sister of a family of three. That is almost £4 000 a year. That means no child going cold and no child going hungry.

Stunning. The biggest fall in child poverty anywhere in Europe for at least 40 years. Right here, done here. Not reported at all in England. Really cheap. Really cheap to do. Scotland has matched Finland.

The biggest success story in social policy in the UK for 40 years.

I’ve known of this for years but never saw the full thing. It’s been massively supressed in the media operating in Scotland and you can see why.

I had to be reminded of it in this today:

Documentation mentioning Professor of Human Geography at University of Oxford: FOI release: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202600523152/

and: