Across Scotland, 260,000 children are growing up in poverty. That is a tragic and devastating situation that we can, and must, do something about.

Our Scottish Parliament has the powers to lift thousands of children from poverty.

In recent weeks, pressure has grown on the Scottish Government. Over 100 organisations from across civic society, including every faith leader, have joined our call for them to double the child payment.

But we recognise, and have listened to evidence, that tells us that even doubling the payment to £20 a week would not do enough – it wouldn’t meet the legal targets the Scottish Parliament set.

That’s why we are demanding the government double the payment immediately, but go further than that by committing to doubling it again within the year.

📑 The government will today set out its plans for the year to come.

🧒 We're calling on the SNP to recognise the scale of child poverty in Scotland and commit to quadrupling the Child Payment.pic.twitter.com/uRNwERo8Bp

— Scottish Labour (@ScottishLabour) September 7, 2021

Increasing the payment to £40 a week would lift thousands upon thousands of children from the harsh realities of poverty. We would reduce child poverty in Scotland by nearly a third.

The money is there, but the question is whether the political will is.

The last Labour government made a mission of reducing poverty and succeeded in dramatically reducing the numbers of children living in poverty. We have done this before and, after a decade of austerity cuts, we must be bold once again.

If this action is not taken, we will turn our backs on the most vulnerable children in Scotland.

We must build that fairer, more equal country we all want to live in and ensure that this is the best place for every child to grow up in.