When John Swinney, made tackling child poverty his number one priority, he was – perhaps deliberately – setting Holroyd on a rather different course from Westminster. And last month, Mr Swinney’s Government received the news that – if the current policy frameworks remain in place – a growing gap in child poverty rates across the four UK nations will emerge. By 2029, only in Scotland will child poverty have fallen, with the other nations facing further increases on what are already record rates of child poverty.

There are clear reasons for this divergence. The flagship Scottish Child Payment now provides £26.70 per child per week for families on Universal Credit; and Mr Swinney has committed to protect households from the cruel two-child limit, a policy that Labour has, as yet, failed to scrap. This means that, from 2026, Scottish families will be shielded from the........

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