Tag: poverty

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Demand for emergency food parcels in parts of England surges to more than EIGHT times higher as unique Scottish Child Payment begins to reduce child poverty

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By Professor John Robertson OBA: From UK Poverty 2025 The essential guide to understanding poverty in the UK, published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, today: Food banks in the Trussell network distributed 3.1 million emergency parcels across the UK in 2023/24, more than one million of which were for children (Trussell, 2024). This was the largest number on record (topping last year’s previous record high) and represented a 94% increase since 2018/19. The magnitude of this change varied across regions of the UK. The increase in London was 171% and Yorkshire and the Humber 157%. In Scotland it was only 21%. Research … Continue reading Demand for emergency food parcels in parts of England surges to more than EIGHT times higher as unique Scottish Child Payment begins to reduce child poverty

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SNP to reverse Labour’s cruel two child benefit cap and push on to eradicate child poverty for all of us

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By Professor John Robertson OBA From the National minutes ago: 2:40pm BREAKING: The SNP will axe the UK Government’s controversial two-child benefit cap for thousands of Scots. Finance Secretary Shona Robison will make the announcement in her Holyrood Budget speech in just a matter of minutes, according to The Scottish Sun.  This would be a big move, and one that will put Anas Sarwar and Scottish Labour in a tricky position …https://www.thenational.scot/news/24770245.scottish-budget-live-snp-set-tax-spending-plans/?ref=ebbn&nid=1457&u=373de6c7573215d01eab2a2993b269b0&date=041224 At 15:25 she did it! Why is this a major moment in history? From the London School of Economics in September 2023 Support Scots Independent, Scotland’s oldest pro-independence newspaper and host … Continue reading SNP to reverse Labour’s cruel two child benefit cap and push on to eradicate child poverty for all of us

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Fraser Nelson travels ‘home’ to shame city with child poverty level lower than the many he passed on the way from the South

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By Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks again to AR for alerting me to this. Self-described ‘Scot’, born in England, Glasgow graduate, Conservative, benefits scrounger-hunter and former editor of the Spectator, Fraser Nelson is in the Herald today to tell us: We are not getting any nearer to solving poverty that is blight on Glasgow Child poverty in Glasgow is currently 33.5%. Shameful, I know, but on the way, Nelson missed the opportunity to visit and to lecture the people of the above local authorities identified by Action for Children or these local authorities, below, identified by The Health Foundation in July this … Continue reading Fraser Nelson travels ‘home’ to shame city with child poverty level lower than the many he passed on the way from the South

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Eradicating child poverty costs nothing in the long term because everything depends on it

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By Professor John Robertson OBA In the Guardian in December 2024: The news that more than one in three children in the UK are now living in poverty should shock everyone but surprise no one. Nearly three years into the cost of living crisis, we know that young families and disabled people have been among those hit hardest by the biggest fall in UK living standards in half a century. The latest estimates, by the non-partisan Social Metrics Commission, show that the number of people in poverty has risen to 16 million, or nearly one in four of the UK population – its highest … Continue reading Eradicating child poverty costs nothing in the long term because everything depends on it

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Who constitutes the country? Surely, families in poverty are part of that?

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By Alasdair Macdonald ’Country before Party’ is what the Labour manifesto pledged. Setting aside for the moment what ‘country’ connotes, how does Ms McNeill and other Labour MPs justify their decision to support the continuation of the ‘two-child benefit cap’? Their argument is that ‘the country(?) cannot afford it at present. But, who constitutes the country? Surely, families in poverty are part of that? And, why are they in poverty? Because they have not got enough money even though, in most cases, at least one member of the family is in paid employment, and wages are low, hours are few … Continue reading Who constitutes the country? Surely, families in poverty are part of that?

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A lesson for any tempted to vote Labour in Holyrood 2026 – Researchers reveal the policy supported by Scottish Labour causes children to go hungry

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Labour’s Westminster House Jock and North British branches celebrate English Labour’s election victory under their shared flag, before going on to vote to keep the Dead Conservative’s two-child benefit cap, shown by the IFS to increase child poverty levels. Not only has the Institute for Fiscal Studies proved that the two-child benefit cap is the main cause of child poverty in the UK but today, we read in the Guardian: Families hit by the two-child benefit cap are much more likely to go hungry, skip meals or be unable to afford to eat healthily, according to new data which shows … Continue reading A lesson for any tempted to vote Labour in Holyrood 2026 – Researchers reveal the policy supported by Scottish Labour causes children to go hungry

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New Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock Labour MP betrays all she claims to stand for and votes to keep the cruel two child benefit cap and her £91K job

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Before the 2024 General Election in the local Ayrshire newspapers: Elaine Stewart, Labour candidate said: “As someone who works daily with children and young people in some of the affected communities, I can assure you that reason I am standing is to ensure that the child poverty is high on the agenda on a daily basis. “I run food banks and, to be perfectly honest, children and young people should not be eating from this form of support on a daily basis. “Addressing child poverty in Scotland requires a sustained, collaborative effort across various sectors and levels of government, with … Continue reading New Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock Labour MP betrays all she claims to stand for and votes to keep the cruel two child benefit cap and her £91K job

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So simple and effective but Scottish – The SNP Child Payment scares other UK child poverty activists and experts into deathly silence

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The omission by a leading poverty charity on BBC Woman’s Hour  – it’s hard to conceive of a discussion of the ‘two-child benefit cap’ in which reference to the Scottish Child Payment could have been more apposite!  Inexplicable or what? By stewartb – a long read I listened to a lengthy piece on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour (11 July) on the ‘two-child benefit cap’. This is arguably a ‘flagship’ BBC programme with a UK-wide target audience: it is a valuable platform for advocacy groups. The item was prompted by a new Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)  report on … Continue reading So simple and effective but Scottish – The SNP Child Payment scares other UK child poverty activists and experts into deathly silence

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Vote for KEEPING child poverty with Labour

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By Professor John Robertson Astonishing! FFS Labour voted against the Scottish Child Payment, plan no reversal of the two-child benefit cap, have voted against free school meals and in Labour Wales, child poverty is far higher, yet the Daily Record allow Brown to lie shamefaced. In the Guardian on June 7th 2024: Local child poverty rates across the UK correlate very strongly with the percentage of families affected by the two-child benefit cap, research has found, indicating that the controversial policy is a key factor behind children growing up in deprivation. The study, carried out by Loughborough University for the End Child Poverty Coalition, will … Continue reading Vote for KEEPING child poverty with Labour

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Do Scotland’s Labour candidates support their leader’s laughing at child poverty and leaving thousands of them in it?

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Here’s Sir Keir, tin-eared and clearly complacent about poverty, laughing at a wee girl talking about her family’s fuel poverty: What kind of people are the Labour candidates in Scotland, if they can keep going behind this horrible man? And, do the Labour candidates in Scotland accept his views on the two child benefit cap? See this from the Canary, today: The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) estimates that the two child benefit cap impacts 1.5 million children, including 1.1 million children in poverty. Abolishing the cap, CPAG states, would lift 250,000 children out of poverty. And it would improve even worse poverty for … Continue reading Do Scotland’s Labour candidates support their leader’s laughing at child poverty and leaving thousands of them in it?