Natalie Don MSP has welcomed Scottish Government estimations that around 1200 families in Renfrewshire North and West will benefit from the Scottish Child Payment this year (2021/22).
Qualifying low-income parents and carers are provided with a Scottish Child Payment of £40 every four weeks for each child under six by the Scottish Government’s Social Security Scotland agency.
The benefit, which is unique to Scotland within the UK, has been hailed as a potential ‘game-changer’ by anti-poverty campaigners in the fight against child poverty.
The MSP for Renfrewshire North and West welcomed news in response to her parliamentary question today (Wednesday 16th June) that the payment is planned to be fully rolled out to children under the age of 16 by the end of 2022, subject to data being provided by the UK Government’s Department of Works and Pensions (DWP) to enable Social Security Scotland to make top-up payments.
Natalie Don MSP said: “The Scottish Child Payment will make a massive difference in helping lift many children out of poverty in my constituency. However, the UK Government’s welfare policies are having the opposite effect.
“The Children’s Commissioner for Scotland said that if the UK Government scraps the £20 Universal Credit uplift in September, this will effectively knockout the benefits the Scottish Child Payment brings into families.
“The UK Government should start matching the SNP Government’s ambitions by introducing anti-poverty measures, instead of cuts. The scale of the Tories’ benefit cuts makes mitigation by the Scottish Government unsustainable and one of the reasons why we need full powers in the Scottish Parliament to tackle child poverty.”
By 2023/24 – the first full year of the Scottish Child Payment for under 16s – the Scottish Government estimates the number of families receiving the support in Renfrewshire North and West could increase to around 2,100.