Letter: Labour reduced child poverty

Sir,

Dr Wilson, SNP propagandist - for that is what he is - is not too troubled to furnish us with up-to-date facts and thus he reduces child poverty to another political football. I regret that.

Perhaps I can help with corroborated facts. I am sure, had he known, Dr Wilson would have told us that the organisation End Child Poverty has been subsumed into the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) which is the recognised authority on child poverty. ECP and CPAG speak with one voice.

The initial figures he quotes for child poverty are those from the time of the Coalition government for which the Labour government was not responsible

He could, if he had wished, but it did not suit his purpose, have quoted as many Labour authorities with the lowest levels of child poverty.

CPAG from which Dr Wilson has also quoted, states categorically "child poverty reduced dramatically between 1998 - 2011 when 1.1 million children were lifted out of poverty." The Labour government was in power during this period. "This reduction is credited to measures that increased the levels of lone parents working, as well as real and often significant increases in the level of benefits paid to families with children."

Incidentally, had the figure been but 0.9 million the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) states that this would have remained a very significant achievement. The 0.8 million figure quoted by Dr Wilson is the number of new children expected by the IFS to be in poverty by 2020 if there is not a Labour government.

The Child Poverty Act 2010 was enacted after 11 years of work by the Labour government to have all the major parties committed by law to eradicating child poverty by 2020. Both the recent Coalition government and the SNP government are falling far short of that target.

Far from being the total number of Scottish children in poverty Dr Wilson's 80,000 refers to children in working families. The total figure is 220,000 regrettably.

Finally since Dr Wilson is a late convert to the IFS - better late than never - he will surely agree with its analysis of the Labour and SNP manifestoes. This shows that the SNP's advocates far deeper cuts than Labour's. So much for the SNP claim to be anti-austerity. Just more SNP propaganda. Only the Labour Party has a proven track record of reducing child poverty and both CPAG and the IFS speak highly of the Labour Party's achievements in reducing child poverty.

Angus McCormack

25 North Street
Sandwick
Isle of Lewis

Letter: Labour reduced child poverty

4 May 2015