Ending the Shame of Child Poverty

As an amendment to motion S3M-02621 in the name of Bob Doris (Ending the Shame of Child Poverty), leave out from “the worst levels” to end and insert “some of the worst levels of child poverty in Scotland; therefore welcomes the findings of the most recent National Statistics publication of Scottish Households Below Average Income, which shows a marked decline between 1999 and 2007 in the number of Scottish households in both absolute and relative poverty, including a 28% decrease in relative child poverty and a 61% decrease in absolute child poverty, meaning that the previous administration’s target to halve absolute child poverty by 2010 was being met significantly ahead of schedule; believes that this progress would not have been possible without many of the initiatives by the previous administration and the UK Government, including the Sure Start programme, record increases in child benefit, the working families tax credit, child tax credit and the national minimum wage, the latter of which was finally passed in the House of Commons without the support of a single SNP MP; also believes that, despite SNP MSPs’ rhetoric, freezing council tax and abolishing prescription charges by 2011 does absolutely nothing to assist those on the lowest incomes given that they are already exempt; considers that after nearly 18 months in government, the SNP is yet to fulfil its pledge to introduce direct payments to kinship carers of looked-after children and that its budget, passed with the support of the Conservatives, is in fact precipitating cuts to a range of local services including school meals provision and to a host of voluntary organisations providing services affecting some of Scotland’s most vulnerable children, and further believes that this threatens much of the progress made during the past decade in tackling child poverty as well as seriously undermining the SNP’s credibility on these matters.”