Yng Nghymru ym Wath mewn ei dweud rhaiad ym Ym Mnghydd yng Nghymru yw mambeithu horddd ddigonol, i'n ddegon i John Wilson yn ddegonol ei ffigur eu bobl bod gyda'r rodd. Mae'n ei dweud ar lŵn, mae'n gweld i gwohligiau pa drafodaeth i ddegonol ac mae'n ddigonol iawn i gwyl yn ddigonol i ddegonol i wneud, ac nid gael i chi gael i gael i bw Shipwyr, neu fyddwch yn gwasanaeth Again, I invite members to leaving the chamber and indeed the gallery To do so quickly and quietly, please. I now call on John Wilson to open the debate, please, seven minutes Mr Wilson. I would like to take the opportunity to thank those members Across the chamber who signed my motion and enabled this debate to take place today. Rwy'n credu i'r wiell hwn o bwctfwysig, i'r choreoedd oedd unrhyw edrych i Gwyrdwy, i Bernardo, Sgrin ddau a Gwyrdw i'r trwy hyn oherwydd sy'n gweithes hynny oherwydd ei ysgrif wraffiteid i ddebytu'r newid. Fyggwyr hwn o hyn ymgyrchu o'r choreoedd oedd oedd oedd o'r choreoedd oedd i Gwyrdwy, a'r newid oed yn gweithio o gwbl sydd yn ogymell o gwbl hynodau o'r choreoedd. The South Lanarkshire Council area, for example, is the new town of East Calbride, quite rightly, as it is regarded as a prosperous location, which finds itself with figures indicating 25 per cent child poverty in the East Calbride southward area. In another part of South Lanarkshire,larc hall, the figure for child poverty is 26.46 per cent. It is important to realise that behind these statistics ein achos cyhoedd yn gweithio gyda'u trafodaeth gyda'u gwath i hoffa gan grifle a'r Dde middlefysg? Gyda poffertu yn cael ddweud yn gystaflio yn ddyf征 Aberwyr a Llywodraeth ac yn fwy o gyffredig gyda dal i gwybod.. .. �fynodd y mhawr bryd yn ei geirio cyfo yng Nghymru yw gweithio gyda Lywodraeth. Mae'r ysgrifennidau yng Nghymru wedi gweld â ni yn fyrdd o Hywyddi Gwylladegol, yn gyfathi gyda lei i aeth o gweithio gyda Lywodraeth. five of the children in Scotland today living in poverty. I am aware that over the past 15 years there have been various debates on the subject of poverty initiated by members in this chamber. The effect of poverty should not be underestimated. It leaves a deep scar on those living in poverty and has an impact on our people's educational attainment with many failing to develop their life chances. Poverty, and in particular child poverty, earmarts the lack of our collective ambition for our future generations. With an estimated 11 per cent of pupils leaving school with air qualifications in the most deprived areas compared with 3 per cent for the rest of Scotland, the factors that drive poverty are a brief intervention. I wonder if it shares my surprise that when we heard the Government's announcement at the weekend at the conference from the new First Minister that this was going to be central to the new plan, and yet we have two SNP-backed benchars interested in this debate. Is that not a surprise to you? I cannot comment on Mr Finlay's observations, but members should be aware that it is disappointing that there are a few members in this chamber from all sides in taking part in this debate. As I was saying, the factors that drive poverty are diverse but more challenging than ever. For far too long, we have relied on various schemes to ameliorate poverty. Enchild poverty has called on the UK Government to rethink welfare benefit policies and taxation policies. On the back of what we must acknowledge, we need to reconsider our outlook on welfare policy. The Good Times, Bad Times, publication by John Hills and his recent Guardian article on 12 November, the spells that we have missed have been peddled about a them-in-us society and the fact that people rely on welfare systems at various times throughout their lives. Researchers at Lothborough University have taken account of housing costs. This is an important consideration when looking at real day-to-day living costs. Poverty is careless in the extreme. Since the problems that it creates means that we as a society are regularly trying to play catch-up, creating various and ad hoc projects to tackle the symptoms instead of really tackling the root cause. Sorry, I do not have time to take any further interventions. I realise that the new First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has clearly highlighted one of her objectives is to eradicate poverty in Scotland, and I, for one, look forward to her Government's proposals on how to tackle poverty. It is a poor sign of today's society that in my lifetime we have food banks being used as almost a norm for an increasing number of people in work. That clearly impacts on the family and the individual's emotional development and general wellbeing. In addition, local citizens advice bureaus and DWP officers throughout central Scotland have to refer families to food banks on a daily basis. This is a situation that cannot continue to blight our society. Equally, the onset of Christmas brings us the usual cheap marketing techniques that are utilised by payday loan companies, and those are no doubt a factor in terms of how people spend what in many cases is their limited financial means. It is worth noting that energy companies regularly withdraw discount tariffs for the most vulnerable groups in society. With the onset of winter, people will again face an unmanagable hike in energy prices, despite the real-terms fall in energy wholesale prices. Any economic strategy worth its salt has to recognise that opportunities will only come around if we also acknowledge the need for economic and social justice. That is a prerequisite for all of Scotland so that all our people can flourish and especially our future generations. Hopefully, the Smith commission will deliver a framework for further powers for this Parliament that can assist in the delivery of policies that will reduce the growing income gaps in our society and provide better cohesion. Devolving welfare powers is a necessary factor in that policy mix. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the end child poverty organisation, who continues to raise our awareness of the campaign and highlight their useful contributions to the debate of tackling and ending child poverty in Scotland once and for all. I look forward to the day that this Parliament can say that we have eradicated child poverty in our midst. I inform the chamber that we are pretty tight for time today, with many members wishing to speak. With your help, I would like to confine you to your allotted times today. I now call on Jackie Baillie to be followed by Alison Johnstone. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I congratulate John Wilson on securing debating time in the chamber and also congratulate him for the tone and content of his contribution, because I know that this is an issue that he cares passionately about. Like him, I have been motivated by all my working life by the values of social justice, fairness and equality, because those are the very values that brought me into politics in the first place. There is no greater cause in my view than tackling child poverty, and Labour's ambition for Scotland is quite simply to end child poverty. I, like everybody else, I suspect, want to live in a society where every child is given the very best possible start in life and where no one is left behind. I used to work in some of the poorest areas of the west of Scotland, so I have seen the impact of poverty first hand, the children whose life chances are determined before they reach the age of three, the parents who have been in and out of low-paid temporary jobs, the despondency and, indeed, the lack of hope that is visited on some neighbourhoods. However, I have equally seen the resilience and the determination of people and communities to fight back. In the decade to 2007-08, when Labour was in office, absolute child poverty fell from 39 per cent to 19 per cent. Over 1 million children across the UK, over 200,000 children in Scotland alone, lifted out of poverty. Since that time, the decline has been slower, progress has in recent years stalled and is now in danger of going the wrong way. However, the lesson here is that the levels of child poverty dropped more significantly in Scotland than in any other part of the UK, and by 2007 we had the lowest level of poverty in the UK, despite the starting point being greater. That was about political will and determination to change people's lives for the better, and we can and must do that again. We already have control over a number of key powers, control over health, over housing, education, childcare and more. There is much that we can do ourselves. The child poverty strategy put forward by this Government is a reasonable one, but up to recently there didn't appear to be any additional money earmarked for such a pressing problem. There was no monitoring framework in place. There was little idea if some of the inputs from Government were leading to the right outcomes and whether they were actually making a difference. If we are serious about this, we need to get so much better at doing all of that, because the scale of the challenge that we face is increasing. Almost 65,000 more children face poverty due to some of the welfare cuts proposed by the Conservatives. That is a political failure, not a failure of the constitution, and I make no secret of my desire to vote them out. Let me turn to in-work poverty, because that has an impact on child poverty. In-work poverty is rising. The minimum income standard shows that prices in the last five years have risen by 25 per cent at the same time as wages have declined in real terms. We are facing a real cost of living crisis, the likes of which we haven't seen for decades. I want to make sure that work pays. It was Labour that very proudly introduced the national minimum wage. It is Labour that has led the argument for the living wage in this Parliament. The SNP said recently that they share our ambition, so I am genuinely disappointed that they rejected the opportunity to do something about it in the procurement bill. For 400,000 low-paid workers in Scotland. That is at a time when they also rejected removing zero-hours contracts from the bill, having equal pay audits and all things that would have made a difference. We know that poor employment practices have a disproportionate effect on women. Almost 64 per cent of them paid less than the living wage are women. They are also more likely to be on zero-hours contracts and in part time work. There are areas that the Government could already make a huge difference in, and I do not think that we are using all the powers that we currently have to do exactly that. I would urge the minister, in her summation, to talk more about what the Scottish Government could actually do to make a difference. I thank John Wilson for giving us the opportunity to debate this important issue this afternoon. I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in the debate and apologise for having to leave before the minister responds. Too much of a child's life is set by the happenstance of where they are born, yet we know that children who are born into low-income families do not start without high aspirations. 97 per cent of mothers in low-income families want their children to attend university, but there is a continuing persistent attainment gap and immense barriers to what we call social mobility. Of course, the vast majority of people born into poverty make a brilliant success of their lives. They become dedicated partners, loving parents, our great friends and have successful careers. No one should be stigmatised because of the economic situation into which they are born, but it is important to look at the barriers that children face. Looked after children are a stark example. Care leavers have poorer educational qualifications than their peers, poorer health outcomes and are notably more likely to have contact with the criminal justice system. However, that is not the case in Finland where the attainment gap for looked after children is far less stark. That achievement is likely down to a complex mix of reasons, but one highlighted is the focus of the education system on support for teacher attainment and qualifications, and we have to learn from good practice in other countries. The child poverty map of the UK is a really useful way to see how child poverty plays out across the country. For a decade, we saw a drop, a notable drop in child poverty, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others. However, as we know, this improvement is being reversed rapidly. We are going backwards. Child poverty is predicted to rise with an estimated 600,000 more children living in poverty by 2015-16. The motion today refers to finding effective ways of offsetting the recent changes to the welfare system. I agree that the economics of austerity and welfare cuts are having a particular impact on women and children as a result. The Fawcet Society tells us that a fifth of British women's income comes from benefits. For men, the figure is a tenth, so the loss of benefits and services hits women hardest. Women are more likely to be employed in public sector jobs at risk of austerity cuts. As state services are withdrawn, it is women who tend to fill the gap as unpaid carers, for example. A fair system of social security is vital, it should be devolved, but welfare is not the core solution to poverty. We have to think about poverty in terms of equality and redistribution of power and money, closing the gap between rich and poor. We need political wealth to tackle zero-hours contracts. We have to address fuel poverty, affordable heat and affordable rents are essential, but we know that, for the first time, more than half of people in poverty live in a working family. People are working, often in demanding jobs, but they are being paid wages that keep them in poverty. The Government subsidised the situation and the companies who pay poverty wages with corporate welfare. The fair solution is a living wage. The national minimum wage needs raised to living wage levels immediately. The living wage commission estimates that that would benefit an estimated 5.2 million people across the UK, 17 per cent of the working population. Our election manifesto will include a new minimum wage of £10 an hour for everyone by 2020, a wealth tax on the top 1 per cent and company-wide pay ratios, a package of measures to truly tackle the UK's persistent inequality and poverty, because we need to create a fair and sustainable society for all our children. I thank you for securing the debate of thank as the right term, given the subject matter that we debate today, but I do appreciate the fact that you brought this debate before us. In 21st century resource rich, it is the fact that there are any children, let alone the numbers that we see living and poverty. There are far too many, and it is particularly acute. In some parts of Scotland, as Mr Wilson's motion refers to, for example, the local authority in which my own common local sight constituency is located in North Lanarkshire, there is a particular issue in terms of the number of children living in child poverty. We know that poverty in the early years can limit life chances, to say that the children remind us that children living in poverty are more likely to experience bad health children living in poverty are twice as likely to be born under weight, they are more likely to live in a home that is called they are more likely to miss out on regularly healthy meals, they are more likely to fall behind in the early years and to achieve less well than other children at school. Those are the outcomes being determined by the happenstance of birth that Alison Johnstone spoke of. She is quite correct to say that we shouldn't pigeonhole people, we shouldn't stereotype people but it would be wrong, we cannot ignore these statistical correlations. The presence of food banks that Mr Wilson referred to as a visible demonstration of the fact that we have child poverty and are missing the failure of the UK Government's welfare reforms and particularly aware of that issue is the deputy convener of this Parliament's welfare reform committee. We know that the welfare reforms are impacting particularly on children, save the children reminders that 22,000 children accessed food banks in the last year. Just this week, we have seen the child poverty action group Oxfam, the Trusill Trust and the Church of England published a report where they find that gaps in the social safety net are forcing people to turn to food banks. For help, the welfare reform committee also reported on food banks and had similar findings. Sadly, the UK Government has refused to acknowledge Neil Cwllan, who was a DWP official, who came before our committee and told us that food banks are demand-led. The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Scotland came before our committee and, blithly, said that more research was needed into the causes of the uptake of food banks, although the UK Government will not be taking forward such research. Food banks and the children of the families using them are a visible demonstration of our society's failure to do enough to ensure that people are able to feed themselves. I just want to close the debate, because, as ever, you do not get a lot of time. I want to close, but I set out that child poverty limits life chances, but we should not think of it as limiting the ambitions, hopes and dreams of those children in poverty. Children First have published their new report, Wishes for Scotland's Children. They gathered the wishes, the hopes and aspirations of children families. They worked with and I wanted to read out a few of them. Variously, to take away poverty, a culture that prioritises family, rather than the economic gap between rich and poor to be reduced, no child should go to bed hungry that all children would have enough living space, indoors and outdoors, enough to eat, enough love and enough play, warm and comfortable homes. Let me conclude, Presiding Officer, by saying that we have to commit our efforts to making sure that those hopes, ambitions and aspirations can come true. I now call on Hugh Henry to be followed by Alex Johnson. It does not surprise me that John Milksons has brought a motion forward on this topic. I have known John for well over 30 years. In all that time, I know that he has retained his passion and his determination to tackle issues such as child poverty and to tackle inequalities in our society. Jackie Baillie mentioned the number of areas across the west of Scotland that she worked on. Like Jackie Baillie, I did that for a number of years. In the 1980s, at a time of massive deindustrialisation and huge increases in poverty, I worked as a welfare rights officer in communities such as Pollock and Priesthill, such as Gumbarton in the Vale of Leven, and Greenock and Port Glasgow in Drumchapol. It was stark in those days to see just what poverty was doing to decent men, women and children across west of Scotland. Of course, the west of Scotland was no different from other parts of Scotland. It was debilitating, it was demoralising and it was dehumanising. The irony is that in those days, as bad as we thought it was, we had a benefit system that was more flexible, with single payments, with weekly additions to the basic benefits, where social work departments could afford to use section 10 and section 12 of the Social Work Scotland Act to help the families in the worst circumstances. Whereas now, when we see the increases in poverty, we find that local authorities are constrained financially and that the benefit system is becoming much more rigorous and hard on the poorest families. In those circumstances, it is actually, in some respects, harder now for families living in poverty to cope than it has ever been. Alison Johnstone, who is unfortunate that she has had to leave, mentioned that, for a decade, we saw a drop in child poverty, but she should have reflected in Jackie Baillie's comments that that drop in child poverty did not come about by accident. It came about because of political will and political determination by a Labour Government to do something about it. It is no accident that we are now seeing an increase yet again in child poverty now that we have a Labour Government out of power at Westminster and out of power in Scotland. We now have two Administrations who are complacent about the rise in child poverty, which pay lip service to tackling child poverty. If there is a criticism that I make of John Wilson, I think that John should have used his opportunity to speak to prick the cosy consensus that exists in relation to child poverty. I was accused by Patrick Harvie in a debate in October of one of the worst contributions of cynicism that he said he had ever heard in this Parliament. That was because I pointed out that, since 2007, each and every one of us sitting in this chamber has done very well from the decisions that have been made by this Scottish Government. However, the people that I represent, the people, for example, on maximum council tax benefit, have not received a single extra penny in help during that time. For politicians who want to talk about tackling child poverty, who fail to realise that it is a result of political decisions and political will, then they are the cynical ones. If they simply say that we stand up and we are willing to do something about it but by their actions they do the opposite, they do nothing, that is the challenge for each and every one of us. Many thanks. I now call on Alex Johnson to be followed by Malcolm Chisholm. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is not always easy, but I would like to continue the spirit of consensus that we have had during this particular day in the Scottish Parliament. There are key issues surrounding child poverty in particular, which I think are vital that we pay some attention to during the course of this. One of the things that I have taken from the poverty map that I have looked at is the surprising level of child poverty that exists across the whole of Scotland. There are areas where it is more serious and members have spoken about their own areas where it is a problem, but it came as something of a surprise to me to see the levels that exist in some of the wealthiest areas of Scotland, areas where I myself represent and where there is still a significant level of child poverty particularly when you take into account housing costs, which of course can be higher in those areas. At the same time, we have to understand what it is that we are talking about. The Labour Party has been slightly disingenuous during some of its contributions in this debate. Jackie Baillie was the one who highlighted the excellent figures for child poverty, which existed in 2007. 2007 being at the end of 15 years of continuous economic growth and only three years before the Labour Party left office in Westminster, leaving the key under the mat and an empty purse on the sideboard. As a consequence of the recession that we experienced then and the recovery that we are now only tentatively beginning to see, it is perhaps dishonest to claim that there were political reasons for that change when they themselves were responsible for some of the economic reasons for the problems that we face. However, there are other issues that have been raised here, the suggestion perhaps that the devolution of welfare powers will somehow get us over the problem where it is in and reverse that. Can I suggest that the devolution of welfare powers may simply move the fiscal constraints that currently exist in Westminster right into the hands of a Scottish finance minister and a Scottish welfare minister, but the fiscal constraints there will continue to be. My concern over poverty relates to how we deal with it. I would like to commend the Scottish Government for the work that it has done in difficult circumstances to find additional resources to alleviate some of the problems that it has identified. I would also like to pay tribute to the work of third sector organisations that have done a great deal to overcome those problems. However, I do have concerns that too often we talk about those problems in terms of how we solve them in the short term, how we make up the difference that is required to bring people up to an acceptable level and how perhaps too often the outcome of that is welfare dependency and a further continuation of the cycle of poverty. So, along with the work that is being done and the hard work that is being done by this Government and others, we must never forget that we need to ensure that those who are growing up in some of the most difficult areas in Scotland enjoy equality of opportunity, that the chance will exist for those who go to some of Scotland's less well-performing schools to eventually achieve the results at school that will allow them to go on in education and training and give them that opportunity. We need the flexibility that will deliver labour mobility to ensure that those who are in high unemployment areas can take up the jobs that we are creating within Scotland, but at the moment are unable to get our unemployed to move in order to take them up. There are so many opportunities, so in spite of the failures that have been described, I think that we have the opportunity to go ahead and actually make a difference in the long term as well as the short. In view of the number of members wishing to speak in today's debate, I am minded to accept a motion under rule 8.14 to extend the time allowed. I invite Mr Wilson to move such a motion. I so move, Presiding Officer. Are members in agreement? As no members have disagreed, I therefore extend this debate under standing order rule 8.14 and call on Malcolm Chisholm to be followed by John Mason. Presiding Officer, there is no more important subject than child poverty and I congratulate John Wilson for bringing forward the debate and all the work that he has done over many years on the subject of poverty. One of the issues that brought me the greatest pleasure in the early years of the Labour Government was when Tony Blair announced that child poverty would be abolished in 20 years, and there was good progress from 2000 to 2012 right into the years of the recession. I have not got time to rebut everything that John Wilson said, but given that it is a relative measure, I do not think that there is any excuse for it being derailed by recession. However, it has gone into reverse and we see the appalling levels of child poverty, not just in Scotland but across the UK. It was interesting to see the recent figures that nine of the worst 16 constituencies for child poverty in the UK are actually in London. Connected with child poverty are a whole other range of appalling disadvantages, highlighted by the Save the Children briefing. Poorer children are more likely to experience bad health, to live in a house that is cold, to miss out on regular healthy meals, to fall behind in the early years, to achieve less wealth than other children in school and so on. One of the features now is that we cannot just say that the route out of poverty has worked, because 59 per cent of children who live in poverty live in families where at least one parent is working. That is where issues such as the living wage are so crucial. One way of stemming the decline is to support the introduction of that. As members know, Labour has been campaigning on that for a number of years. I thank Mr Chisholm for giving way. I know that the living wage is one of the tools that can be used to raise earnings, but we do not accept that the current benefit system, the tax credit system, actually penalises those who may benefit from a rise to the living wage. I am going to go on to talk about the benefit system. Obviously, I am critical of that as well, but I think that it is important to repeat the point about the living wage and the action that we have called to changing public sector contracts to place a duty for employers to pay the living wage across all public contracts. I think that that is very important. The changes to the benefit system have adversely affected families with children. In fact, children on low-income families are among the groups that are losing the most as a result of cuts to benefits and tax credits, and I am certainly very critical of that. Of course, the other factor driving up child poverty has caused the impact on children. Food is the most obvious of those, and we are all appalled by the rise of food banks. Contrary to what is said by some Conservatives about welfare having nothing to do with that, we read today that the sanctions applied to many parents in the benefit system are a key factor in driving people to food banks. There is plenty of action for the UK Government, but there is also much for the Scottish Government to do. We have their strategy against child poverty, but save the children while welcoming the individual measures that are set out in the strategy are highlighting that there is a lack of detail on who will play key roles in delivering the strategy over the next three years and what the overarching goals are. In short, we are yet to see a vision turned into practical action. Without measurement of progress at ground level, it is difficult to assess how policy is benefiting each area. As they point out, I am quoting, there is an emerging trend towards the development of strategies at a local level. That is welcome, but we must ensure that there is drive and progress in all local areas, given that the child poverty map showed child poverty existed across Scotland. Developing reliable data of delivery and progress at a local level will be key. I look forward to seeing more of that as the strategy moves forward. Finally, I would like to point out something that is highlighted both by the UK social mobility and child poverty commission and by saving the children. That is the inequality in attainment. Save the children point out that part of tackling the long-term cyclical issue of child poverty is to ensure that it is prevented, and they recommend that the Scottish Government focus on that. I think that my time is up, so I will conclude on that note. I am grateful to many thanks. Thank you, Presiding Officer. This is a subject that we keep coming back to, and I am afraid many of us wish that we did not need to, but it is absolutely right that we continue talking about it as long as it exists. Sadly, child poverty shows no real sign of going away, and it is absolutely right that we keep talking about it. I thank John Wilson for bringing that subject today. Just last night, I was at the graduation ceremony of Glasgow Kelvin College, and Henry McLeish spoke very well. One phrase that he used, which I thought was excellent, was that inequality is poisoning our society. In 2010, the child poverty act was passed while I was at Westminster, and there was a commitment in it to abolish or eradicate child poverty by 2020. I think that even then, there were some major disappointments with that Labour legislation. Firstly, abolish or eradicate meant that there still would be 10 per cent of children left in poverty, and secondly, that there were no new resources to actually make it happen. That is the kind of lip service that I think Hugh Henry is referring to in his speech. We are four years on, and I fear that we do not see much progress. More than one in five, 220,000 of Scotland's children are officially recognised as living in poverty. That level is significantly higher than in many other European countries. In 2012-13, the proportion of children in Scotland experiencing poverty increased from 19 per cent to 22 per cent. The most recent modelling by the Institute for Physical Studies suggests that up to 100,000 children will be pushed into poverty by 2020, with the proportion of children living in poverty in Scotland forecast to rise to 26.2 per cent by 2020. What are the effects of all this? We have already heard some by the age of five. Children in poverty lagged between 10 and 13 months behind the more affluent peers in terms of school readiness and attainment. Three-year-olds and households with incomes below £10,000 are two and a half times more likely to suffer chronic illness than children households with incomes above £52,000. Children living in low-income households are also nearly three times more likely to suffer mental health problems than their more affluent peers. Now, there used to be an assumption that work was a certain route out of poverty, however that has already been referred to, and clearly that is not the case anymore. If the living wage was paid more widely, I am sure that that would make inroads into poverty at all ages. However, even with maximum support for it from the public sector, it remains voluntary for large sections of employment. So, at best, a voluntary living wage can only be an interim step, and the longer-term answer has to be an increase to the statutory minimum wage, and that should not just be to £8 by 2020, as Labour is very disappointingly suggesting, but it should—I am sorry, I am too late—but the level of the living wage and that as soon as possible. This is a country that can afford these things. The briefing from the commissioner, for example, says that this is a country where the most affluent households in Scotland are 273 times richer than the poorest ones. There is something very wronging on here. Jamie Hepburn referred to the children's first report, Wishes for Children, which has just been published, and it reports a range of wishes, ranging from the humorous to the deadly serious, and especially in the section called Included, which Jamie Hepburn quoted from. I have to say that there are good things happening, both financially but other things happening as well, for example getting it right for every child, to give a more joined-up approach to supporting children and vulnerable families. I can also just specifically mention the fact that I welcome the named person being introduced, which I think can really help children families from poorer backgrounds to really pin down the person who can answer their questions. Presiding Officer, I fear that this will not be the last time we debate child poverty, but we most certainly need to keep topics like this on the table, and I hope that we can see progress. Thank you. I would like to add my congratulations to John Wilson for securing today's debate and, like others in the chamber this afternoon, express my mixed feelings that we once again haven't had this discussion about how we tackle child poverty in today's Scotland. Just earlier in the week, I had the enormous privilege of hosting the Home Start reception here in the Scottish Parliament. At that event, which marked the launch of Home Start's first-ever policy manifesto for Scotland, we heard from Professor Phil Hanlon, Professor of Public Health at the University of Glasgow, and Home Start UK's chief executive, Rob Parkinson, both of whom spoke about the challenges facing public services and the people who work in them. They spoke of addressing the twin challenges of providing support to families whose lives have been devastated by poverty and inequality, while at the same time being able to make the investments and interventions that are proven to make a difference and in the long run will therefore reduce the human and financial cost of poverty in the future. However, there followed a more powerful contribution from women whose families have been supported by Home Start volunteers and whose lives have been changed by that help. Women who had been able to move forward to become Home Start volunteers but crucially also to develop in their own right as individuals and who had the confidence and self-worth to want to grow and effect positive change for themselves, their families and their communities. If my fellow MSPs haven't yet had a chance to read the Home Start policy manifesto, can I urge them to do so? It highlights three main priorities—that all children should have safe places to live and play, that all children with appearance suffering from mental illness should be supported, and that all children should be well nourished and protected from hunger and poor nutrition. Achieving that will require a co-ordinated and sustained effort by Government at all levels and a willingness to think beyond departments or budget headings and put tackling child poverty at the heart of service planning and delivery for all public agencies. On reading the Home Start manifesto, it is the same distressing and familiar roll call of statistics, many of which mirror the findings of the end child poverty map. It cites the figure of 30,000 children who live in families who cannot afford to eat properly. John Wilson has rightly highlighted the child poverty rate in central Scotland and it is as shocking as it is in mid-Scotland with Fife. I am alarmed to see that in some parts of Fife the child poverty rate is over 30 per cent. The concerns about the changes to the welfare systems as well as the challenges of rising food and energy prices for families across Scotland are well rehearsed, but it is vital that we repeat those concerns often and loudly and never let ourselves become inured to such statistics because every piece of data describes someone's life. If you are that person the experience for you is not a statistic, it is your reality. Nelson Mandela said that overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Poverty is not natural, it is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings and that includes those of us in this chamber. We live in a country where 350,000 children will live in cold homes this winter and for 200,000 children those homes will be damp. That is a shame on all of us and I sincerely hope that we begin to make progress in reversing the rising tide of child poverty in this country. Back in March, we debated the Scottish Government's poverty strategy. I will not repeat my words when that debate or my amendments to the Children and Young People Bill that sought to put tackling child poverty at the heart of service planning and delivery for all public agencies, but I will raise again today the need for the guidance accompanying the Children and Young People Scotland Act to address the vital links needed between children's services and tackling child poverty. It would be great to hear from the minister on this point at the close of the debate and I look forward to her contribution. Thank you. I now call on John Finnie to be followed by Neil Findlay. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I too congratulate my colleague John Wilson on bringing this debate, but it's with some frustration that I find myself debating it, because of course we're living in a very wealthy country and there's absolutely no reason why there should be poverty. I certainly am very happy to pay credit to those in the past who have made efforts to try and improve that, but what we do know is that the United Kingdom is one of the most unequal countries in the world and we know that that inequality is growing, and that's been refracted in the figures that we're discussing today. That said, I think that it's everyone's responsibility, absolutely everyone's responsibility. The United Kingdom Government, the Scottish Government, local authorities and the national health service is indeed to play their part in this. Clearly, my preference would have been for independence and for Scotland taking full charge of its own affairs there. I think that we saw from the example of how this chamber dealt with the issue of bedroom tax that the consensus that can be built across the chamber would have brought about a more humane regime. We know that there are a number of contributory factors, and I too would like to thank the various organisations that have provided very helpful briefings to us. The contributory factors causing the situation are, for instance, low wages. My colleague John Wilson is quite right to highlight his constituency. I would like to say that in relation to many of those factors we'll discuss that rurality often compounds the issues there. Similarly, with under-employment that's been referred to as being a contributory factor, transport costs are a significant implication there, too. Social security benefits and, in my own area of Inverness, we have universal credit being trialled there. We also know that sanctions, simple things like the cost of a telephone call, have significant implications for individuals. The situation of zero-hours contract brings about that real dilemma of inward poverty, which I certainly don't think it should be the purpose of the state to subsidise abusing employers who pay the level of wages that they do to their staff. That's certainly, to my mind, a catch-22, as is the cost of childcare. Of course, what we do know is that, in the past six years, childcare has gone up by 44 per cent. Indeed, in what might as many seem an unusual phrase, the minimum cost of raising a child has gone up by 8 per cent since 2012, 11 per cent for a lone parent and, of course, during that period, no rise in family benefits. Benefits of the subject are a lot of ill-informed comment. I would like to comment on the level of unclaimed benefits in the UK, £10 billion, £10 billion in unclaimed benefits, half of that would fall to go to working-age families. That's money that would be in individuals' pockets and being spent in communities. The effect of that not being used is not only to the individual but also to our communities and our local economies. Who's interests are served by that? It's certainly not the people we're charged with representing. I commend other steps that have been taken. For instance, free school meals are a step by their capacity issues for local authorities. I would like to touch on the short time that's left there on one aspect, which is fuel poverty. To quote our new First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, when she said in relation to a report on poverty, there is no place for fuel poverty. That's absolutely right. We know that fuel poverty is a 10 per cent of income that has been spent meeting heating standards. In the much-talked-about situation of people who are having the terrible choice to make, do they switch on the heating or do they switch on the cooking and the growth in food banks is an unacceptable situation being faced across the country. In the national performance framework, we talk about a phrase, our children have the best start in life and are ready to succeed. That will only happen in my opinion, if we have genuine redistribution of wealth. Our living wage is a part of that. Progressive taxation is another important part, but we must do everything in our powers that we have here to eradicate fuel poverty. I thank Mr Wilson for bringing this debate forward. I believe that poverty is the greatest blight in our society, bar none. It's a scandal, it's a shame, it's a national embarrassment that one in five of our children are officially recognised as living in poverty. That, for example, is a lone parent with two children with less than £269 a week to live on. The numbers, as people have mentioned, continue to rise. We're now up to 22 per cent of the children living in Scotland in poverty. It's not difficult to identify the source of the problems or, indeed, the solutions to them. Unemployment, for example, saps morale eats away at people's relationships and destroys community cohesion. When I worked as a housing officer in Livingston in Edinburgh, I saw grinding poverty at close quarters. Families unable to buy clothes for their children, pay for school events, trips, but most disturbingly families unable to buy the basics such as food and heating. Too many people feel as though the system was working to deny them opportunities, not help them to get on, and, of course, to bedroom tax, the most vindictive example of that. When people are able to get into employment, they need to get some stability and feel some worth and some value and some job security—that zero-hours low-pay culture that sees people as just another cog in the corporate machine to be hired and fired at a whim is demoralised. I was speaking to a constituent recently who received a text from Jobcentre Plus, told to go and work in a food factory. When she turned up, she was employed for a few hours, then tapped on the shoulder and told she was no longer required. Could she go home and return later that evening for another few hours? She lived 20 miles from the factory and her public transport costs would have been £20 a day. That is not the way to help people get back into work. We have to end that zero-hours exploitation, not only is it bad for people but it is bad for our economy. Of course, we have the Tories' ideological war on the poor. We have painted people as skivers, the politics of division. We see benefit cuts for the poor and tax cuts for the rich. Is not it ironic, as the PCS Union tells us, that 40 per cent of the people administering universal credit will themselves have to claim it because of low pay? We need a benefit system that helps people into employment and does not punish children for being poor. What on earth do Cameron, Osborne and Ian Duncan-Smith know about poverty? They have not got a clue. We need the Scottish Government to use the powers that it has here and the powers that it will get to put on a tackling poverty, particularly child poverty, at the heart of every Government policy. However, you cannot tackle child poverty if you do not redistribute wealth and power. You cannot do it if you centralise power. You cannot challenge child poverty without a living wage. It is to this Government's shame that it refused to act when we had the procurement bill. Let us never forget who the lead minister who took that bill through was, the new First Minister. You cannot challenge child poverty by giving tax cuts to corporations. You cannot challenge child poverty when local government budgets are being savaged. I know about to no one in my contempt for the Tory party, but there is a huge amount that this Parliament can do to address child poverty. Let us see if the new First Minister's conference rhetoric is matched by action. I now move the closing speech from Minister Margaret Burgess, seven minutes, all thereby. I would hope that, as child poverty, it is such an important issue, one that affects all of us and all of our communities, that we could have had a bit more consensus from some of the Opposition speakers here today. I will respond to some of the things that have been said, but I congratulate John Wilson on bringing forward this debate. I will take an intervention later, but I will certainly take an intervention from Neil Findlay. I also congratulate John Wilson for bringing forward this debate, because tackling poverty and inequality is absolutely central to the Scottish Government's vision of making Scotland a more successful and prosperous country. I assure everyone in the chamber and in the country that we are determined to address the root cause of poverty. We are not paying lip service to it. We are absolutely determined to address the root cause of poverty, to help people to overcome the barriers that prevent them from achieving their potential. I will now take Mr Findlay's intervention. I have no problem working with anyone consensually where consensus exists, but we tried to work to build consensus on the living wage. The Government did not want to know, so where there is no consensus exists, do not try to fabricate some. I will respond to that point, and I would have got to it later on in my speech. I will make something absolutely very clear. The Scottish Government is committed to the living wage. We are committed to the living wage, we are promoting the living wage, we have funded poverty alliance to promote the living wage, and we have made it very clear in the statutory guidance in the procurement process what the Government's view is on the living wage. We did it legally, we did it legally. Neil Findlay can say and argue as much as he likes. We could not put it into the procurement bill the way he wanted to, but we have made it very clear what our position is on the living wage. We want the power to come to this Parliament in the minimum wage that we can then increase in line with inflation and hopefully reach the living wage level. That is important because the living wage after it was introduced in the UK, both the previous Labour Government and the current coalition, did not increase the living wage in line with inflation, so families in Scotland are already over £600 a week a year worse off simply by not increasing the living wage in line with inflation. I think that it is something that we very much as a Government would want to do. We have heard the talk of the benefits, the changes to the benefits and how that will impact on those in the lowest income and further austerity measures and how that is predicted to put a further 50,000 to 100,000 children, more children in poverty. Of course, that is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to me that any Government can create policies and bring forward policies in the full knowledge that more of our children are going to end up in poverty because, again, what is happening in Westminster all parties have signed up to austerity and that simply means that poorest households will continue to pay the highest price. I will give way. The minister talks of the changes to the welfare system. Will she not agree with me that there is a certain inconsistency with Labour MSPs in this place criticising those changes but whether the Labour spokesperson of these matters in the shape of Rachel Reeves thinks that she is going to be tougher on welfare than the Tories? I think that what the member highlights is the difficulty that the Labour Party has because they have their masters in London and they are saying something different here, but what is happening in the ground, what they are doing and saying across the UK does not match what has been said in this Parliament. I want to say some of the positive things that we are doing about child poverty in Scotland because it is important in the revised child poverty strategy for Scotland. The strategy was set in line with stakeholders, all the key players, child poverty action group, Bernardus Scotland and all of the organisations that are in the front line of dealing with poverty are all part and helped us to inform the strategy and to develop that strategy. The strategy has got three key areas and it is about maximising household incomes. John Finnie mentioned unclaimed benefits and that is very much part of it. We need to make sure that households are getting every single thing that they are entitled to and we have put resources into that, improving life chances and opportunities and we have done a lot in that in terms of our preventative work and our early years strategy and we will continue to do more. Providing well-designed sustainable places and very much we have put another £200 million into the housing budget for affordable housing and the work that we are doing in affordable housing and also I think a number of people mentioned fuel poverty. We are contributing £79 million for energy efficiency measures across Scotland again helping the poorest in our society and we are challenging the UK and what their changes to the energy company obligation is because it does impact on rural areas but we have in the budget that John Finnie set out last week was very clear. There were three aims in the budget to make Scotland a more prosperous country, to tackle inequalities and to protect and reform public services and that will shape all of the across every portfolio in this government is about tackling inequalities making Scotland a more prosperous country and protecting services and he set out commitments to tackle the poverty and inequality that blights our society maintaining spending and welfare reform mitigation over £296 million and that includes £23 million to help those the most vulnerable in receipt of council tax benefit because if we hadn't stepped in with that those people who were in benefit would be expected to pay more in terms of council tax. We've got our Scottish social wage, the increased provision of free nursery education and we heard what the First Minister said today, she is absolutely committed that if the SNP re-elected again in 2016 we will increase that to 30 hours a week and that's a huge commitment and it's about helping reduce poverty and inequalities. I had a lot more that I wanted to say in this but I do think I want to say about our proposals to the Smith commission. We want the powers of full fiscal autonomy and full powers over welfare and employment matters. We're doing that to enable us to ensure policy coherence, welfare, employment and taxation can operate in harmony with each other. We need more powers in Scotland to ensure that work does pay and I think we're all agreed in that so we should be able to determine tax credit and benefit rates here in Scotland. We should be able to determine the minimum wage and finally we need the ability to protect the most vulnerable on our society. We need the power to create a fairer welfare system instead of having to expend money mitigating UK policies. We want to create opportunities that meet distinctive Scottish priorities and we want our proposals to equip the Scottish Parliament with the powers to create more jobs, tackle inequality and protect public services. Instead of seeing tens of thousand more children grow up in poverty we want to use the additional powers to give Scotland's children the very best possible start in life in a fairer, more prosperous country and that's something I'm sure we all want. I thank you all for this excellent debate and I now suspend this meeting of Parliament until 2.30.