Further increase to Scottish Child Payment benefit confirmed
The benefit will rise to £25 a week from the end of this year, Social Security Secretary Shona Robison has announced
The Scottish Child Payment is to increase by a further £5, bringing it to £25 a week by the end of the year.
The devolved benefit is already due to rise to £20 a week at the start of April.
On Thursday the Scottish Government’s Social Security Secretary Shona Robison announced it’s to go up again, a move that she says will lift fifty thousand children out of poverty.
£10million to be spent each year 'mitigating the effects' of UK Government's benefit cap
Ms Robison also announced £10 million a year will be spent on mitigating the effects of the UK Government's benefit cap.
She said: "We will double the 'game-changing' Scottish Child Payment to £20 in just over a week and extend the payment to children under 16 by the end of this year.
"However, I am pleased to announce that we will go further still and will also increase its value again to £25 per week per child by the end of 2022.
"I can also announce that we will take immediate steps to mitigate the UK Government benefit cap as fully as we can within the scope of devolved powers, backed by up to £10 million each year.
"This will help support thousands of the lowest income families, including lone parent families who are disproportionately impacted by the cap."
Calls for Scottish Government to go further
Responding to the Cabinet Secretary's statement, Scottish Labour MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy said the costs of mitigating the benefit cap could be greater than the £10 million which had been allocated.
She said: "I welcome a further increase to the Scottish Child Payment, but it can't be ignored that it took too long to raise it to £20 in the first place.
"So long, that the Government stands here today telling us it'll increase to £25, families are still waiting for it to reach £20 and that won't even happen until April."
Following the statement John Dickie from the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland told MFR News that the increase will bring much needed relief to struggling families and is in stark contrast to the Chancellor’s statement yesterday: “It will need to be kept under close review to ensure that the investment is enough to see that we do meet the child poverty targets. But in itself this is a really welcome step forward.
But he says increasing the benefit won’t be enough on it’s own to protect the most vulnerable from the cost of living crisis: “As this plan starts to be implemented we also need to see action to support families with the very immediate cost of living crisis that they’re seeing.
“Two ways to do that would be to double the bridging payments that are being paid to school-aged children until the full rollout of the Scottish Child Payment, and also press ahead with the rollout of free school meals in primary six and primary seven.”