Overview

• Lord Bird moved an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to enshrine statutory child poverty reduction goals and plans to reintroduce it at the report stage.
• Analysis shows Scotland achieved a 12% reduction in child poverty since 2018 while England and Wales experienced a 15% rise.
• The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 set a target to reduce relative child poverty to 10% by 2030.
• The Big Issue recommends flexible, time-bound targets for England and Wales and proposes a judicial review mechanism as a backstop.
• The report highlights that 21,000 Scottish children were lifted out of poverty compared with 320,000 more children falling into poverty in England and Wales.