Labour will not eradicate poverty

Sirs,

Councillor Angus MacCormack (Letters 2nd May) is rightly concerned about child poverty, but has arrived at the bizarre conclusion that voting for the Labour candidate in the forthcoming General Election will solve the problem.

He should reflect on research by the highly respected organisation "End Child Poverty" (www.endchildpoverty.org.uk), which tells us that the 20 local authorities in Britain with the highest level of child poverty are all Labour-controlled. They include huge authorities like Manchester, where 39% of all children are living in poverty, Birmingham with 37%, Leicester with 37% and Nottingham with 36%. There is not single Scottish local authority on this list.

The list of the 20 authorities with the lowest level of child poverty includes three in Scotland: Shetlands (best in Britain, with only 10% of children in poverty), East Dunbartonshire with 14% and Aberdeenshire with 14%.

Cllr MacCormack claims that "a Labour government will always have as a key priority the eradication of poverty." It was in power for 13 years at Westminster during 1997-2010, yet the "Child Poverty Act" was enacted only in 2010, when 2.5 million children (19.3% of the total) were deemed to be living in poverty.

The Labour Government was only able to clam that it had lifted 1.1 million children out of poverty, as claimed by Cllr MacCormack, because it had re-defined "poverty" and massaged the figures. As the Institute of Fiscal Studies shows (www.ifs.org.uk/comms/comm121.pdf) the reduction was only 0.8 million and Britain, after 13 years of Labour Government, had the worst record in Western Europe.

Cllt MacCormack quotes the IFS as stating that "220,000 Scottish children live in poverty." The Child Poverty Action Group, basing its research on IFS data, puts the figure at 80,000 (www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-26504780), and this is substantially less than when the SNP Government assumed office in 2007.

Cllr MacCormack should explain how the spectacle of Labour MPs joining with their Conservative comrades at Westminster on 13th January 2015 and voting for a further £35 billion of slash-and-burn austerity cuts aimed at the poorest and most vulnerable people in Britain will help to end child poverty.

Dr David Wilson

Press Officer

Lewis branch SNP

12b Tolsta Chaolais

Isle of Lewis

Letter: “Labour will not eradicate poverty”

3 May 2015