Child Poverty Strategy

Johanna Baxter Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

There we are: the true face of the Tory party, describing people who are in work in that kind of way. We will always back working people. I would just point out to the hon. Gentleman that there are 329,000 more people in work than was the case a year ago. We are tackling poverty and supporting parents back into work, and we will reform our welfare system alongside that. He and the Conservative party should have the good grace and the humility to accept that their decisions have pushed hundreds of thousands of children into poverty, including in his community. Maybe he should go and speak to them and see what they say to him.

[Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

I warmly welcome the publication of the child poverty strategy, in particular the lifting of the two-child benefit cap, which will lift 1,560 children in Paisley and Renfrewshire South out of poverty. But 100,000 children in Scotland remain stuck in homelessness accommodation, and that is on the SNP’s watch; it has control of that in the Scottish Government. What assurances can my right hon. Friend give me that she will work with colleagues in the Scottish Government to ensure that every lever of power is exerted so that constituents in Paisley and Renfrewshire South get the same opportunities as those across the rest of the UK?

[Bridget Phillipson]

This is a UK wide-strategy, and we will continue to work with the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to bring down poverty in all of our four nations. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the staggering and appalling record of the SNP Government in Scotland, particularly when it comes to homelessness, and to highlight the impact that temporary accommodation and homelessness have on children’s life chances. She will know as well as I do that this Labour Government in Westminster delivered a record settlement to the SNP Government in Scotland. They have choices about how they take this forward, but of course, if they fail to do so—if they fail to take the decisive action that people across Scotland need—perhaps it really is time for a new direction for Scotland with Anas Sarwar.