 The next item of business is a statement by Shona Robison on tackling child poverty delivery plan fourth year progress report 2021 to 2022. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement and so there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on Shona Robison to make the statement up to 10 minutes, please, cabinet secretary. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Today I have published the fourth annual progress report due under the Child Poverty Scotland Act 2017. That is the final report of progress delivered against every child every chance, our first tackling child poverty delivery plan. It summarises the progress delivered across 2021-22 and the key milestones that we have achieved since the plan was published in 2018. In the past year we have continued to address the impacts of Covid and support recovery from that. We have also helped families facing increased household costs through our winter support fund. The report showcases that the breadth of activity under way supported by partnerships across Scotland. It highlights that we have delivered upon all 68 of the actions committed to. That includes the additional actions committed since the plan was first published. The report sets out the latest estimates of spend-targeted support to low-income households with almost £2.6 billion of spend-targeted in 2021-22, of which more than £1.1 billion benefitted children. Across the four years of every child every chance we have estimated to have targeted almost £8.5 billion to low-income households, of which nearly £3.3 billion benefitted children. The report also presents the latest available data on persistent poverty for children, which shows a marked drop compared to previous estimates from 15 per cent to 10 per cent. Now, while that is welcome, further data will be required to determine how much of this observed fall is due to real change and will be sustained in coming years. We anticipate being able to publish updated statistics against all measures in March 2023. Over the last year we have continued to deliver for children and families across Scotland. We have continued to increase incomes through social security. Following the launch of the Scottish child payment in February 2021, we have gone on to award £55.1 million to low-income families in 2021-22, providing support to an estimated 103,000 children as of the end of March 2022. Through bridging payments, we have put almost £80 million into the pockets of low-income families with school-aged children, providing up to £520 for each eligible child, with £148,500 benefiting as of spring 2022. We expanded eligibility for the child winter heating assistance to a further £4,500, young people in receipt of the personal independence payment and launched both child disability payment and the pilot of adult disability payment. Supported by our investment, 139gp surgeries in the most deprived areas now have welfare advisers in place, providing access to advice in the places that people go. In addition to support financial wellbeing and recovery from the Covid pandemic, we put over £68.9 million in the pockets of Scottish households through low-income pandemic payments. We have delivered action to address the impact of cost of living and to reduce household costs. That includes delivering 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare hours across Scotland as of August 2021. The latest data from January 2022 shows that 88 per cent of children are accessing the full 1,140 hours, estimated to save families up to £4,900 per child in 2021. We expanded the universal provision of free school meals to all children in primaries 4 and 5, provided alternate free school meal provision in school holidays to around 144,000 children from low-income families and further increased the value of the school clothing grant £120 for eligible children in primary school and £150 for those in secondary school. From 31 January this year, we extended concessionary travel to under-22s living in Scotland, with approximately 930,000 young people eligible for support, estimated to save families up to £3,000 by the time of their child turns 18. We have also supported more parents to increase their earnings from employment by continuing to deliver support through devolved employability services and through our focus on fair work. That includes strengthening our fair work first criteria to include offering flexible and family-friendly working to all workers from day 1 of employment, increasing the take-home pay of over 7,600 workers through living wage accreditation and launching the real living hours accreditation campaign. Beyond those steps, we also invested £41 million in our winter support fund to help low-income households impacted by rising living and fuel costs. Every child every chance was published shortly after the ambitious child poverty targets were set in statute in this Parliament, marking a change in focus and approach to tackling child poverty in Scotland. The plans set out the three key drivers of child poverty reduction, focusing on working earnings, social security and household costs. It also set out the need to focus efforts on the six priority family types at greatest risk of poverty. Whilst the world was very different when every child every chance was published, those have remained constant and remain vital to our approach. Over this time, we have built our collective understanding and awareness of poverty and have strengthened the foundations of support that already existed in Scotland using powers devolved to this Parliament to go further than ever before. That includes establishing our devolved social security system and delivering 12 benefits of which seven are entirely new and not available anywhere else in the UK, including our Scottish child payment. With those powers, we are providing unparalleled financial support across the early years, which by the end of this year will be worth a maximum of over £10,000 for a family's first child by the time that they turn six and over £8,200 more than is available anywhere else in the UK. We have delivered devolved employability services based on dignity and respect and have continued to do everything that we can to promote fair work, despite key powers over employment being reserved to the UK Government. We have almost doubled funded childcare hours, significantly increasing school-clothing grants and have delivered over 9,757 affordable homes, of which 7,306 were for social rent. In addition, we have taken key steps to strengthen our overall approach to child poverty. That includes establishing our statutory poverty and inequality commission. We reached our groundbreaking agreement with the Scottish Green Party, setting out our shared focus on tackling child poverty and influencing key measures, including free bus travel for under 22s and, of course, our commitment to mitigate the benefit cap. The progress that we have made has been despite significant challenges. Covid has changed all of our lives immeasurably and disproportionately impacted the most disadvantaged in our society. We have seen the continued impact of UK Government welfare cuts and austerity over the last year in particular. Recent analysis highlighted that, were the UK Government welfare cuts imposed since 2015 to be reversed, that would put an additional £780 million in the pockets of Scottish households in 2023-24, helping to lift 70,000 people out of poverty, including 30,000 children. In 2021-22, not only did we continue to deliver progress against our first tackling child poverty delivery plan, we worked together with partners to develop our second tackling child poverty delivery plan for the period to 2026. Published in March, best upright futures builds on the strong foundations laid by every child every chance, setting out our ambitious action to drive progress towards the targets and to lift thousands of children out of poverty back by up to 113 million of additional investment this year. The plan outlines how we will work in partnership across Scotland, including the public, private and third sectors and with communities, to take forward our national mission. We know that Covid has impacted on the delivery of key commitments, including our affordable housing supply programme and the parental employability support fund. Through best upright futures, we have set out how we will regain lost ground and go on to scale up the impact of key programmes, including through our new employability offer to parents. We have, from April, double the Scottish child payment, £20 per week per child, which will rise to £25 by the end of the year. We have also increased the value of a further eight social security benefits by 6%, providing much-needed support to families. Our commitment to tackling child poverty is underpinned by the recently published resource spending review, setting out high-level plans for how funding will be invested in the coming years to meet our priorities. The progress report published today sets out the considerable action that has been delivered since 2018, resulting in strengthening support for children and families across Scotland. The Government is absolutely committed to tackling child poverty and is now focusing on the implementation and delivery of best upright futures, building on the foundations of the past four years and the significant learning from this time. I look forward to taking questions from members in relation to the progress that has been delivered over this reporting period. 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 time we will move on to the next item of business, and it would be helpful if those members who wish to ask a question were to press their request to speak buttons now. I call Miles Briggs. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement. There is, though, one group of children and young people who have not merited a comment today by the cabinet secretary, and that is the number of children living in temporary accommodation in Scotland. I have raised that consistently with the cabinet secretary and make no apologies of doing that again, because we see today in Scotland seven and a half thousand children living in temporary accommodation. Many of whom are being housed there for months and years. A typical stay for a family now is doubled to over 58 weeks. It is rightly described as a national disgrace. Does the cabinet secretary think that it is acceptable, and, although there are not, ministers will now look at proposals to implement a ban on children being placed in temporary accommodation? I agree with Miles Briggs on this point, and that is that we know that the number of households in temporary accommodation is too high and that we are firmly committed to reducing it. Alongside our ambitious programme of affordable house building, we are providing £52.5 million for local authorities to implement their rapid rehousing transition plans and housing first approaches. He will be aware that there is a working group with a lot of expertise looking at what more can be done to tackle what is a difficult issue, particularly in some parts of Scotland. It is not uniform everywhere. I met the key people from that group just a couple of weeks ago to hear about the progress of their work. We know that housing is a key part of our mission to tackle child poverty, and that is reflected in the resource spending review with increased resources to prevent homelessness and provide more warm, affordable homes. We will continue to do that. My only final observation is that there has to be a consistency of policy programme. I would gently suggest to Miles Briggs that having a commitment to allow the sale of housing association properties would not be a good way to go down. I am glad that Miles Briggs is saying that that is not a way that would be followed in Scotland, because his Prime Minister has set out that that is the way that he would be going in England, and it would be heartening to hear more from Miles Briggs on that, because I do not think that we have heard much from him on that. We cannot allow how homes that are built under the affordable housing programme to be lost in the same way that council houses were lost up to about £500,000, if I can recall correctly. However, I will continue to give my focus to tackling temporary accommodation and to make sure that the working group gets our full support in coming up with the solutions that are required. Pam Duncan-Glancy I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement. Deputy Presiding Officer, the tone of the statement that we just heard was celebratory, but this is no time to pat ourselves on the back. 260,000 children are still in poverty in Scotland. A report published last week by the JRF and Save the Children said that we are unlikely to meet our targets and describe this Government's approach to tackling poverty as good on diagnosis, short on prescription. The SNP has chosen to close their eyes and hope for the best where, in a cost of living crisis, there is no fair wind. This is not a good day. The Government must do more. It cannot rely on hope and optimism alone. Now more than ever, we need real concrete action on all the drivers of poverty. But where is it? We cannot wait until the next delivery plan to identify what more there is needed. By then it will be too late, and it is not just me saying that. That is the Government's own poverty and inequality commission saying that too. People across Scotland need to know what the Government is going to do to lift them out of poverty. I ask the cabinet secretary today when will the Government acknowledge the gravity and the scale and pace that is required in this situation, start using all the powers of this Parliament to address it, and what will they do to do that right now? First of all, I do not accept that my statement was celebratory. I think that what it tried to do was to set out the measures that we have taken, both in relation to the first child poverty delivery plan and then to set out how we segment into the second child poverty delivery plan, best at bright futures, and essentially ending with that we have now to implement that in order to continue to tackle child poverty. I do not think that that is celebrated. I think that it was just setting out the facts of what we have done. In terms of what we have done, again, I do not think that it is fair, a fair representation to say that we are not doing everything we can through the budget for 2022-23. The Scottish Government has allocated almost £3 billion to a range of supports that will contribute to mitigating the impact of the increased cost of living on households. That includes work to tackle child poverty, to reduce inequalities and support financial wellbeing alongside social security payments that are not available anywhere else in the UK. If you can see through the resource spending review that social security is where the main bulk of the spend is being made here in the Scottish Parliament, that is where the direction of travel of funding is. I would have thought that there is always more to do and I will never disagree with Pam Duncan-Glancy on that, but just occasionally it would be good for some acknowledgement of the action that has not been taken anywhere else in these islands. I call Ruth Maguire, who is joining us remotely to be followed by Rachel Hamilton. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The Cabinet Secretary outlined the amount of support that the Scottish Government is providing to mitigate the impact of the cost of living crisis and also mentioned social security. Too many people are missing out on UK Government benefits. How can we encourage benefit take-up at both Scottish and UK level? Ruth Maguire makes an important point. We need to encourage the take-up of benefits and promote that. Obviously, she will be aware that we have had a benefit take-up campaign and have funded a number of advice workers that I referred to in my statement in order to try to get to people who are perhaps visiting their GP surgery to make them aware of what their entitlements are. We are looking at the moment of what more we can do in order to make sure that there is easily accessible information and advice around the myriad of supports that there are, not just available through Scottish Government supports but also UK welfare supports and indeed those that are rooted through local government. That work is on-going to look at how we can make sure that we can promote that so that everybody who is entitled to get some of that support gets it. I am happy to keep Ruth Maguire appraised of that work. Amendments to extend free school meal provision in Scotland were voted down by the SNP and Greens in the Good Food Nation Bill. When will the Scottish Government commit to extending free school meals provision beyond P4 and P5 so that we can help to alleviate poverty and make sure that young people do not go hungry? The Scottish Government has a proud record of expanding free school meals provision as part of the wider action to tackle food insecurity, to cut the cost of the school day and to help to reduce the poverty-related attainment gap. Scotland's offer of universal free school meals in primary 1 to 5 in special schools is the most generous universal offer in the UK, far beyond what is offered in England, where her party is, of course, in power. We are committed to expanding free school meals provision further. There is money in the budget for capital to expand the provision in school kitchens ahead of the roll-out of that further expansion. That is in addition to more than £169 million provided to support provision of free school meals during term time and nearly £22 million of funding to provide free school meal alternatives to eligible families in the school holidays, regardless of the age of their children. There is always more to be done, but it would be extremely unfair to not recognise the work that the Government has done on free school meal provision. We are adjusting the cost of uniforms for families specifically cited within the child poverty delivery plan. How the Scottish Government intends to raise awareness on the school uniform guidance consultation, which opened recently, and how that fits in and interacts with other investment that the Scottish Government is making to help to deliver the main aims of the plan? As our progress report sets out, we have invested almost £8.5 billion in support targeted towards low-income households across 2018-22, of which £3.3 billion benefited children. We are determined to put money into the pockets of families, as well as reducing household costs. That includes the important element of reducing the cost of the school day, which is why we have increased the value of the school clothing grants over the past four years to a minimum award of £100 per eligible child in 2018, and further increasing that to £120 for primary school children and £150 for secondary. We have set out our intention to bring forward new guidance on school uniforms, aiming to reduce costs and ensure that the money families have goes further. We are engaging with our wide range of stakeholders and will continue to promote the consultation. Child poverty figures and, indeed, some of the estimated figures in Scotland highlight the true scale of the problem facing thousands of families across the country. I want to back up my colleague here to say that I do find the front bench on this quite self-congratulatory. We need to be much, much stricter with ourselves in this Parliament about how serious that is, and that we should be talking about the things that need to actually happen. The minister has not mentioned another group, and that is the priority children's group living in poverty. There are far too many children living in poverty in Scotland today, but inequalities mean that disabled children, those from ethnic minority backgrounds, lone parent families, we know that they need extra support and it has not been addressed. Can the minister set out a clear strategy to support those children and families? I do not think that that is a fair representation of what I was setting out. The statement today is an account of what has been done in the delivery of the first child poverty statement. All I can do is to set out and report on what we have done on what I am required to do under the act. Surely Carol Morgan would be complaining if I was not doing that as per the requirements under the act. I have tried to set out what we have done. Is there more to do? Of course there is more to do, and that is why we have committed the £3 billion in supporting low-income households. That is an extraordinary investment in a fixed budget, with all the pressures on inflation and all the pressures on all budgets. That is an extraordinary investment, and it is putting our money where our mouths are. I could list again as I set out in my statement all the things that we are doing that form part of that £3 billion. However, we have to get a balance here, and we have to have a balance of quite rightly holding us to account. That is what we are here for as ministers in the Government, but just occasionally recognising that that is where we are putting the money. I know that members have complained about money for other parts of Government because the money is going into supporting social security and tackling child poverty. Finally, on the point about the intersectionality of people with disabilities, disabled children and children from a black and ethnic minority background, those are the six priority families that I referred to in my statement. The child poverty delivery plan, both of them, absolutely focus on those six priority families, because we know that they are more likely, including lone parents, to suffer poverty more. That is why we have particularly targeted those children through the plan, and hopefully that is something that Carol Watkins could acknowledge. I call Spawn Brown to be followed by Willie Rennie. New detailed analysis shows that independent European countries, comparable to Scotland, are both wealthier and fairer than the UK. Poverty rates are lower in the comparator countries, and there are fewer children living in poverty. Cabinet Secretary, what would be the opportunities if we had additional powers at our disposal? Cabinet Secretary? Oh, we would have the full levers of a normal Government that other Governments across the world have to tackle child poverty. We would have powers over all elements of social security and employment tax and, importantly, borrowing powers. At the moment, and as we know, we can see this very clearly through the fiscal framework, and this is very relevant in terms of our projected social security spend. We do not have the borrowing powers to allow us to smooth out the peaks and troughs of whether it is income tax take or social security expenditure that every other Government has. In fact, local government has more powers than we have, so it is important, not as some kind of theoretical discussion, but actually about how we would be able to do far more beyond what we can do. I have set out the extensive areas that we are already doing, but we could do far more moving away from a fixed block grant based on what another Government spends to be able to use our resources to better support Scotland's priorities. The cabinet secretary is contradicting herself. In one breath, she says that the statement is not self-congratulatory and celebratory. Before asking Pam Duncan Glancy for appreciation for the work that she has done, she needs to make up her mind. Seven and a half thousand two-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds are not accessing their free 1140 nursery hours. The take-up rate is terrible. What is the cabinet secretary doing about this, and where are we going to see progress? First of all, to correct Willie Rennie, I did not ask Pam Duncan Glancy to congratulate the Scottish Government. What I ask is for a bit of balance of us saying that there is more to do and that we do not always get everything right and that we want ideas from others, but occasionally just an acknowledgement of some of the things that we are doing that are delivering for people in poverty, children in poverty and Willie Rennie's constituency as well as elsewhere. I do not know why Willie Rennie is shaking his head. I have outlined all the measures that we are taking on supporting through the Scottish child payment. I would have thought that he would welcome the support that is going into the pockets of low-income households within his constituency. I have laid out in my remarks the support that we are giving to young people through the work of the roll-out of the early learning and childcare support. That is being rolled out in a way that has been supporting a number of families. We have been investing roughly £1 billion per year in the delivery of funded ELC, supporting children and their families. The resource spending review has again assumptions looking at how we build on that. We have also got commitments to build a system of school-age childcare to support families with low incomes and develop a new offer of learning and childcare for one and two-year-olds. That work is on-going. The number of children eligible to two-year-olds accessing funded ELC, I can tell him, rose last year to 6474 children in September 2021. That is an increase of 25 per cent year-on-year, equating to 1,611 more children accessing their entitlement. Again, more to be done, but, hopefully, that is something that could be welcomed. Maggie Chapman, I will make a plea to members. I have five members who still wish to ask the questions. I need to have short questions and short answers, please. Maggie Chapman, to be followed by Paul MacLennan. I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement. Under the lifetime of the every child, every chance plan, the Scottish Government supported many families hit by the UK Government's cruel benefit cap. Indeed, about 3,100 Scottish households, almost all of them with children, have been negatively impacted by the cap on universal credit alone. Thanks to the Greens working with the Scottish Government, that support will increase over the next four years. Can I ask the cabinet secretary for an update on the work and identifying of eligible families and getting the much-needed support to them, and how can we build on the lessons learned from the welfare advisers' work to ensure that everyone gets all the benefits to which they are entitled? I call for brief questions and answers. I want to get all members in. If I do not get brief questions and answers, I do not get everybody in, and that is just the way it is. I will try to be brief. I can write to Maggie Chapman with more detail. We are looking at the lessons learned from the advisers and how we can make sure that there is an evaluation of the work of that. I can keep Maggie Chapman appraised of that. On the benefit cap, we are consulting with local authority partners on the best methodology for delivering this important policy, which is going to support around 4,000 families once rolled out. I call Paul MacLennan to be followed by Oliver Mundell. Can the cabinet secretary outline what the measures of the Scottish Government is taking to support parental employment as part of its support for priority families? It was on the family benefits. Sorry, I could not hear that one. Sorry, the Scottish Government is taking to support parental employment as part of its support for priority families. Right, sorry. Clearly, that is a key plank of the child poverty delivery plan. It is building on the work that has already been done around employability programmes but making it far more bespoke for families. We recognise that, for many families, they have not found their way to the employability programmes because of all the barriers in their way. We need to understand what those barriers are. They may be childcare, they may be related to other costs that are prohibitive. We want to work with families by making sure that they have a key worker, a support worker to work with them to overcome any barriers that are particular to that family in order to help them to get into employment. Pupil equity funding is allocated based on free school meals data. Given the known challenges with the measure, particularly in rural communities, will the Scottish Government look again at alternatives? Part of the problem that Oliver Mundell is probably aware of is the data. We rely on free school meals data because it is available through local authorities. He will be aware of the discussions that are going on with the DWP—very productive, if I have to say—in order to ensure that we have the data that we require, not least for the roll-out of the Scottish child payment at the end of this year, so that all children under 16 will be entitled to that payment. We continue to look at whether there is other data that we can use, but it is a data source that is there through local authorities that we can rely on at the moment. Can the cabinet secretary outline how much the Scottish Government is spending to mitigate UK Government policies and how that impacts on Scotland's child poverty targets? What assessments has the Scottish Government made of the impact of UK Government welfare reform policies on child poverty in Scotland? In my statement, I laid out that the UK Government, since 2015, has put in place—had it reversed the welfare reform since then—that would put an estimated £780 million in the pockets of Scottish households. That was the figure that I gave in my statement, and that would help to lift 30,000 children out of poverty. On mitigation, we are providing £83 million through discretionary housing payments in 2022-23 to mitigate UK Government policies. The main one, of course, is the bedroom tax, which takes about £68 million, to mitigate helping over 91,000 households to sustain their tenancies—again, something that does not help in tackling the issues of temporary accommodation. If that was able to be resolved at source, we continue to discuss with the DWP about that issue. In fact, we raised it with them at our last meeting. I also include £7 million to mitigate the benefit cap as far as we are able within devolved powers. Again, that will help up to 4,000 families—many of whom are larger families and lone-parent families.