 We are very tight for this afternoon and already over time, so we will move on to the next item now. That concludes topical questions. The next item of business is a statement by Shirley-Anne Somerville on tackling child poverty delivery plan, annual progress reports 28.22 to 23. I'll just allow a moment for members to organise themselves. As I said, the next item of business is a statement by Shirley-Anne Somerville on tackling child poverty delivery plan, annual progress report for 22.22 to 23. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement, and so there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on Shirley-Anne Somerville up to 10 minutes, cabinet secretary. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Tackling poverty and protecting people from harm is one of the three critical missions for this Government. It is a shared endeavour across all portfolios and indeed across Scotland. I want to unequivocally be clear from the outset that this Government is committed to driving forward action at pace and scale required to ensure that our statutory child poverty targets are met. Today, several documents have been published. I have published the annual progress report on child poverty for 22.23. That reflects the initial implementation of action set out in the best start break futures, our second tackling child poverty delivery plan, published last March, alongside additional action taking during the reporting year to strengthen protections in response to the cost of living crisis. In addition, recommendations from the Poverty and Inequality Commission were also published today, which I welcome. Alongside the progress report, we have published updated modelling, which estimates that, as a result of Scottish Government policies, around 90,000 fewer children are expected to live in relative or absolute poverty this year, with levels of relative and absolute poverty 9 percentage points lower than would otherwise have been the case. That includes lifting an estimated 50,000 children out of poverty through the investment in our Scottish child payment. This considerable impact reinforces the importance of our actions to reduce child poverty. It also shows what we can do to tackle child poverty head-on with our limited powers and fixed budget, and that we can make a difference. I am, however, acutely aware that I am doing so with one hand tied behind my back. It is only with the full powers of an independent nation that Governments can use all levers such as economic, social security and employment to tackle poverty inequalities. Recently, we have seen a cost of living crisis and the most challenging economic conditions in living memory, which no-one could have predicted when best start-break futures was published. That has caused unprecedented hardship. Spiring energy costs has led to people having to choose between heating and eating, with the UK Government's support for energy bills withdrawn in March. Soaring inflation has called food prices to increase by nearly 20 per cent over the past year and considerably more for some staples. Continuingly rising costs due to UK Government decisions, including the £100 billion cost to the UK economy of a hard Brexit, economic mismanagement under the list trust Government and the on-going impact of a decade of austerity, have resulted in an even greater pressure on public service finances and pushed low-income families to breaking point. In the face of this challenge, we have had to make difficult decisions in order to prioritise immediate support to people most impacted by the cost of living crisis, as well as to meet our requirements to deliver a balanced budget, a budget that has also been reduced due to inflation. As the report sets out, we estimate that £3 billion was invested across a range of programmes targeted at low-income households last year, with £1.25 billion directly benefiting children. That represents an increase of £0.43 billion and £0.15 billion respectively compared to 2021-22, and vital support at a crucial time for households. The report provides the latest child poverty statistics, which related to 2021-22 and the final year of our previous tackling child poverty delivery plan. Although trends for poverty rates are stable on three target measures, including relative and absolute poverty, there is a low upward trend in persistent poverty. However, those levels do not yet capture the impact of the expansion and increase in the value of the Scottish child payment, alongside other measures that are reflected in the modelling published today. The annual progress report sets out that, as a result of action taken in 2022-23, 40 of the 101 action set out in best start bright futures are complete or ongoing, with a further 39 in progress and 19 in the early stages of development. It outlines the action that we have taken to provide immediate support to families as part of our overall approach to tackling child poverty. We have doubled our Scottish child payment to £20 a week from April 2022, delivered our planned expansion to under-16s and provided a further increase to £25 a week in November last year. That was described by anti-poverty camp organisations as a watershed moment for the tackling of child poverty in Scotland. That was an increase of 150 per cent over eight months. It means that our five family payments, including the payment, best art foods and best art grants, could be worth over £10,000 by the time an eligible child turns six. Over £8,000 more than is available for families in England and Wales, and over £20,000 by the time an eligible child is 16. By the end of March, 303,000 children were in receipt of the payment, very close to predictions of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, but we are not complacent and we are committed to doing everything that we can to ensure that eligible families take up this unparalleled support. Over 2022-23, we invested £84 million in discretionary housing payments to support people with housing costs and mitigate the UK Government's bedroom tax. We also worked with our local authority partners to mitigate the UK Government's unfair benefit cap, as full as possible, within devolved powers backed by £8.8 million this year and last. That is expected to help up to 4,000 families with around 14,000 children, many of them lone parent households who are disproportionately impacted. In the last year, we also acted to increase the value of eight Scottish Government benefits by 6 per cent from 1 April 2022, almost double the planned rate, and have further increased 12 benefits by 10.1 per cent from April this year, providing more money to people who need it most. Despite the significant pressures facing the Scottish budget, we took our opportunity to go further where we could through our emergency budget review, increasing the immediate support available to families. That included doubling the final bridging payment in December 2022 to £260, with payments made in 2022 putting a total of £92 million in the pockets of families of around 143,000 school-age children at a time when they needed it most. We doubled investment in our fuel and security fund to £20 million, helping tens of thousands of people to make their energy costs, and we will triple that to £30 million in the year ahead. In addition to increasing our investment for the Scottish welfare fund, committing £1.4 million for the island's cost crisis emergency fund and £1.8 million to tackling food insecurity, we introduced emergency legislation to give tenants increased protection from rent increases and evictions. We have also taken important steps to deliver change in the longer term. For example, in early years we have set out our approach to expanding our childcare programme over the rest of this Parliament and commenced early phasing of community-level systems of school-age childcare, with a further £15 million committed for this important work in the year ahead. To help drive forward the whole systems change needed, we have established new pathfinder approaches in Dundee and Glasgow, and we invested £32 million in the whole family wellbeing funding to deliver a long-term shift towards earlier preventative intervention with families. Although we have made vital progress, we recognise that the challenging circumstances of the past year have meant that it has not been possible to deliver the levels of investment in key measures anticipated when best start bright futures was published. That included making the difficult decision to reallocate funds from our employability services to enable us to respond to the cost of living crisis. However, in the year ahead, we will make up to £108 million available for the delivery of employability support, and we will work with partners to significantly increase the reach of our services. Scotland's public finances are under more pressure than at any time in the Parliament's history. We fully recognise that tough choices will need to be made about existing budgets in order to drive the progress needed, including looking at how we target our investment to deliver the greatest impact. We will not shy away from the hard choices and tough decisions that will be needed. At the anti-poverty summit, the First Minister convened in May that our stakeholders, partners and those with lived experience reinforced that the approach that we are taking is the right one and that we must continue to deliver with urgency, pace and scale required. We are determined to do more to tackle and reduce child poverty. As is clear from what I have outlined in the past year, despite the challenges of our economic and budgetary circumstances, we have taken action to tackle child poverty head on and progress the action set out within best start bright futures. We have provided immediate support to families impacted by the unprecedented cost of living crisis, and we have gone further to increase protections for families and mitigate the harm of UK Government policies. The modelling published today reinforces that we are not just holding back the tide of poverty in Scotland, but we are turning the tide, with 90,000 fewer children expected to live in poverty this year as a result of the measures that we are taking. In the coming year, we are committed to further investment to accelerate progress and will strengthen our partnership approach, including through our new deals for business and local government. As a Government, we will continue to do everything within the scope of our limited powers and fixed budget to ensure that the statutory child poverty targets are met, and to drive forward progress with urgency and at the scale required, and we will continue to make the case for the full powers of a normal nation so that we can fully tackle poverty and create the fairest nation that we all long to see. Thank you. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions after which we will move on to the next item of business, and I will be grateful if members wish to put a question where to press their request-to-speak buttons now. I call on Megan Galaker. The Scottish Government claims that it has one hand tied around its back, yet it is one of, if not, the most powerfully devolved Governments in the world. This is the same SNP Government who claimed that it could set up an independent country in 18 months, yet it will take nearly nine years for them to fully devolve welfare powers after handing them back to the UK Government. Turning to children in temporary accommodation, organisations such as Shelter Scotland, Poverty Alliance and Crisis have warned ministers about the record number of children in Scotland trapped in temporary accommodation. That number is up 120 per cent since 2014. The SNP Green record on that is shameful. The Scottish Government will always try to pat themselves on the back when it comes to tackling child poverty and inequality. However, Shelter has said that we cannot tolerate an action any longer. Too many children are paying the price. I ask the cabinet secretary what is her response to that comment, and why has her Government not done enough to support children trapped in temporary and emergency accommodation? I have to say, I am perhaps not surprised, but still astonished at the sheer brass neck of a Scottish Conservative member of the Scottish Parliament coming here and saying that we should be doing more. I will give one example of how that is difficult. At the same time as we doubled the Scottish child payment to £20 per week per eligible child, the UK Government cut universal credit by the same amount. Imagine if the people of Scotland actually, for a change, had two Governments that are trying to tackle child poverty than just one. One example that I could give more about how it is very difficult to alleviate child poverty is when one Government in Scotland is not doing nothing but having policies that push children into poverty instead. On the fact that, when it comes to affordable housing, yes, we are very committed to ensuring, as a Government, that we are alleviating the number of people who are in temporary accommodation, particularly children. The Minister for Housing will be saying more on this in due course about the actions that we will be taking. For example, from April 2007 to the end of December 2022, we delivered 118,124 affordable homes to ensure that we were helping people that required that assistance. I would say again to provide the context that we have delivered over three times as many socially rented homes per head of population than England over this period. We should all welcome the new modelling predicting 90,000 fewer children expected to live in poverty. It is deeply concerning to see that there is an upward trend in levels of persistent poverty across Scotland. That needs serious and focused action in order for the Government to meet the targets that we agreed across this Parliament, and any issues in current interventions must be dealt with speedily. I have raised an issue before in relation to the Scottish child payment with the First Minister and the disparity between eligibility and uptake, with up to 60,000 children in Scotland facing missing out on receiving the payment. Therefore, I would ask the cabinet secretary what action she has taken to address those concerns, and will she continue to look at automating that payment. I think that it is revealing that there were only five paragraphs into the statement on child poverty before the cabinet secretary shifted the focus back on to the constitution. The reality is that people across Scotland are being failed by two Governments who are too focused on their own internal issues rather than focusing on relentlessly tackling poverty. Therefore, I would ask the cabinet secretary, will she focus on the detail of eradicating child poverty and outline to the chamber how the new modelling will affect the Scottish Government's ability to hit their own targets on absolute poverty, relative poverty and persistent poverty? I will try to cover as many points as I can in time, Presiding Officer. Paul O'Kane rightly points to the really concerning figures that there are about persistent poverty, and I absolutely recognise that. Paul O'Kane rightly points to the work that the Government needs to undertake around the uptake of the Scottish child payment. I would add another layer on to that, and that is about the uptake of universal credit, and there has been some work that has been published recently, which again shows that there are many, many families right across Scotland that are eligible for universal credit that do not take that up. However, in the context of Scottish child payment, there have obviously been marketing campaigns on this before, and we are very keen to make sure that we are doing more this year to ensure that that eligibility is further improved, particularly for the 66, where the number is slightly lower than the under-60s, which has been in for more time. With the greatest respect to Paul O'Kane, this is not about a discussion about the constitution, it is a discussion about the context. The context that we are in is a very important one when it comes to alleviating child poverty, and that is why that UK context is very, very important. I would also point out gently to Paul O'Kane, and I am quite happy to be corrected on this, if I am wrong, but on those aspects around welfare, there does not appear at this stage to be any change in some of the most concerning policies if Labour got into power. The benefit cap, the issues around the two-child clause and the impact of discretionary housing payments are still things that we would have to be mitigating against, even if Labour got into power. I think that that is a genuine sadness and a genuine context that this Parliament needs to take into account. Mr O'Kane might not like the fact that his party at a UK level is not changing his welfare policies. I would encourage him to try and make sure that he does, but that context is a very important one for us to take account of. Before we go on to the next question, I suggest that we get out of the habit of commenting constantly when other members are on their feet, both putting and responding to questions. It is wholly at odds with the requirements of the code of conduct. I am aware too that there are many members who wish to put a question here, and we will need to pick up the pace, and I call Collette Stevenson to be followed by Stephen Kerr. I thank the cabinet secretary for her statement. Witnesses at the Social Justice and Social Security Committee have told us about the challenges of the UK welfare system. Can the cabinet secretary provide data on the impact of UK Government policies on child poverty in Scotland and outline how the Tories' actions are hampering Scottish Government policies? I hear groans again coming from the Scottish Tories, Presiding Officer. They might not like the question or indeed the answer, but it is an important one about context because that decade of austerity and the welfare cuts have been hugely damaging and are driving more people into poverty. Analysis published by the Scottish Government last year showed that reversing key UK Government welfare reforms that occurred since 2015 would put £780 million into the pockets of Scottish households and lift an estimated 70,000 people out of poverty in Scotland. That is the damage that UK Government policies are having on the people of Scotland. I call Stephen Kerr to be followed by John Swinney. The first two thematic areas in the progress report are related to employment. The Scottish Government itself has said that employment remains the best route out of poverty. I completely agree, but why is the Scottish Government cutting funding on skills? Cutting funding for college places? Cutting funding for apprenticeship places? Creating uncertainty around funding for developing the young workforce? Slashing employability support? Cutting university funding? Why did the Wither's review conclude that this Scottish Government, the SNP Scottish Government, has failed to provide decisive leadership and direction over 16 years in any of those areas? I have missed my exchanges with Mr Kerr since I moved on to education, but let me remind him of some of the challenges that we still have. The real challenge around what we want to do, particularly around fair work and ensuring that work pays a respectable and fair wage, is that employment law is reserved. If employment law was here in the Scottish Parliament, we could be doing so much more. For the sake of time, we have a list of aspects that Mr Kerr says the Scottish Government should be paying more. He is also the person that thinks that we should be raising less tax, which would decrease yet further the amount of money that we have to spend. Once again, we have a litany of things that we should be spending money on, a demand that we should be raising less and somehow expecting the Scottish Government to balance a budget that says all that we need to know about the literacy of Mr Kerr's economic plans. Given the survey evidence that is charted in the delivery report indicating that 97 per cent of parents and carers of three-and-five-year-olds using early learning and childcare are satisfied with the quality of that provision, how will the superb roll-out of the early learning and childcare programme by the Scottish Government and our local authority partners influence the deliberate development of early learning and school-age childcare programmes that are viewed by the overwhelming majority of parents as being beneficial in helping parents into the labour market in the future? I thank Mr Swinney for his question, and he is quite right to point out to the very high levels of satisfaction for early learning and childcare here in Scotland. Of course, we are the only part of the UK to offer that 1140 hours a year of funded ELC to all the four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds who are putting the child first. That is about £1 billion worth of investment that we are putting into that, and it saves a family £5,000 per eligible child per year. That success, which a variety of ministers should take some credit for, including Mr Swinney, is something that we are absolutely determined to build on as we look to improve the already most generous system of ELC that is provided here in the UK. Last week, councils were informed by COSLA that the funding for the holiday food programme that it expected from the Scottish Government would not be forthcoming, leaving councils scrambling around their already stretched budgets, looking for other money to cover the shortfall needed to ensure food for 27,000 children this summer. Even as we passed the date of last year's funding payment, the Government still refused to give any indication on funding limiting councils' ability to plan, and at the 11th hour it dealt the devastating blow. The cabinet secretary has just said that the Government will not shy away from hard choices and tough decisions. Does she really believe that removing funding that could potentially leave many families struggling to feed their children this summer is a justifiable one? We are continuing to invest £15 million this year in building a system of school-age childcare, as announced by the First Minister at the beginning of April. He noted that investment should be targeted at those families who need it most. Our priority now is to support and deliver meaningful and lasting change for families and community to build a system of school-age childcare that provides care before and after school as well as during the holidays. That has to recognise the need for reliable childcare both before and after school, during the term time and for full days in the holidays. That is where that focus has been shifted to. Of course, Ms Duncan Glancy would again wish for further expenditure to be made in this. I would humbly suggest that she might have to also suggest where that would come from. UK households have paid £7 billion since Brexit to cover the extra cost of trade barriers on food imports from the EU. That is according to researchers at the London School of Economics. We know that most people or more people are in need of food banks, although data from the Trustal Trust indicates that the Scottish child payment may have helped to slow the pace of demand for emergency food parcels here in Scotland in the last year. Can I therefore ask the cabinet secretary what impact are rising costs having on the Scottish Government's ability to tackle child poverty? As I said in my opening statement, the hard Brexit that was chosen by the Scottish Conservatives and supported by the Labour Party has had and will continue to have a very devastating impact on families right across Scotland. That has led to increased inflation, increased prices and, of course, leading that to the impact on families as we see it in the figures released today. Those rising costs and inflation, of course, have impacted on our ability to tackle poverty. We have had to take tough choices to rebalance the Scottish budget, which was estimated to be worth £1.7 billion less in November 2022 than it was when it was introduced to Parliament in December 2021. That gives another example of how it is exceptionally difficult for this Government to be able to assist people as much as we would like, although we are determined to do so and to meet our statutory targets. Parliament has agreed that the item will finish in approximately half a minute, but we have several members who would still wish to put a question. If members could keep the questions and responses concise, we will endeavour to get more members in. I call Willie Rennie to be followed by Evelyn Tweed. Those reports are a difficult read on some poverty measures that are just stable and on others in terms of persistent poverty. It is an upward trend. That is despite the Scottish Government spending a significant increase in money in social security. Can the cabinet secretary tell us how much she estimates it would cost to completely eradicate child poverty? Mr Rennie poses a very hypothetical question, but it is a very interesting one. What makes it more difficult—and it is again before anyone groans about providing the context of what we are working in—is that we are working to be able to mitigate child poverty, to take people out of child poverty, but we are seeing implications of policies elsewhere that are dragging people back in. How much we have to spend depends very much on, for example, would the UK Government take action to have a real living wage right across this UK to ensure that we are delivering a way out of poverty, meaningfully, when people go in to work? I give one example about why I cannot give a specific answer to that, but I hope that the modelling that we have presented today helps to go along the way. Everyone tweet to be followed by Miles Briggs. A report from the child poverty action group shows that the cost of bringing up a child in Scotland is lowered by 31 per cent on nearly £24,000, with the doubling of the Scottish child payment, and once the expansion of free school meals is delivered. If this is what can be achieved with limited resources and powers, how much further could we go if we had full powers? As we have demonstrated in the modelling that has been published today, the Government's focus on tackling child poverty is making a significant difference. The impact not just on the Scottish child payment but of the 1140 hours is something that is very significant. One of the real challenges that we have with the powers that we have is our constant requirement to mitigate whether that is against the benefit cap or whether it is around other aspects of the current UK system that makes it very difficult for us to be able to lift children out of poverty. I imagine what the debate that we could have in this chamber if we did not have to spend that money mitigating, but could actually have a discussion around how we could use that money to actually lift more children out of poverty quicker than we can at the moment. Miles Briggs, to be followed by Maggie Chapman. In 2016, SNP ministers pledged to deliver a national allowance for children living in kinship care. Kinship carers play a vital role in providing caring and nurturing homes. Why have ministers failed to deliver on their 2016 pledge? I think that Miles Briggs is continuing interest in this really important issue, which I have discussed with him previously. He knows that this is not simply about the Scottish Government, but also our work with COSLA and local authorities to put that into place. I would be happy to ensure that the minister, with responsibility for kinship care, gives him an update on where those negotiations are at this time. I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement. Increased problem debt is likely to be a long-term implication on the cost of living crisis, with households managing extremely limited finances or negative incomes. We know that this will disproportionately affect women and single-parent households. Will the Scottish Government consider stopping the collection of public sector debt for a period of at least six months to help households to use that money on essentials such as food, energy and housing costs? I thank Maggie Chapman for raising a very important issue about the number of people that are experiencing debt or even the fear of going into debt on this. Clearly, she will also be aware that when we talk about public sector debt, there are a number of actors involved in that, most obviously local government, but not just local government. That is not an issue that the Scottish Government can take on. Clearly, a number of local authorities have taken a decision to eradicate some of the debt in some areas. I can think of some, for example, that have looked at the debt around free school meals or school meal debt, but there is something for individual local authorities to have a position on. Can the cabinet secretary let me know what her response is to the reports that highlight that more than two thirds of children in poverty live in working households? It is absolutely unacceptable that two thirds of children living in poverty live in a household where at least one person is at work. That is a deeply concerning issue. That is why the action that we are taking around the drivers of poverty reduction includes significant investment in Scottish Government benefits to be able to assist with that and also around employability services. I go back to a point that I made before about the real need for UK-wide, because that is where the power lies, to ensure that we have a fair work agenda and a real living wage right across the UK to ensure that work is genuinely a way out of poverty. That concludes the ministerial statement. That will be a small pause before we move on to the next item of business.