Vision for eradicating child poverty in Scotland: First Minister's speech - 15 January 2025

I am enormously grateful to the Robertson Trust for enabling us to be here today. I very much welcome the opportunity to discuss a topic of such importance to me personally with a gathering of partners who are so similarly invested in achieving the best outcome for Scotland we possibly can. 

I am here to talk but I am also here to listen. I have had the opportunity at the table a moment ago to hear from some of you already, and I look forward to participating in the round table conversation later this morning.

You are the experts. You are the people with direct experience – in many cases lived experience – of the reality of poverty in our land. 

I want you to be honest and candid with me.  

I can set a direction, I can give an impetus and a priority to these issues within government, but you will know exactly what actually works.  

You will have a sense of the real-world complexities, you will have a clearer line of sight on the barriers and shortcomings in the system, and on the holes in the safety net that children, that families, have often fallen through.  

I have said that the eradication of child poverty is my government’s number one priority, and I want it also to become our nation’s number one goal. 

Why is this so important to me?  

I am going to answer that question in three ways, starting with what is for me the essential underlying principle. 

I cut my political teeth in the 1980s and I remember vividly Margaret Thatcher’s assertion that there is no such thing as society.

This was more than a throwaway phrase; it captured an ideology – what I consider to be a hugely damaging ideology. It is a view of the world that sees the individual as the fundamental unit.  

What matters most, with that worldview, is that ‘I’m alright’, and maybe by extension, those closest to me are alright. Other people, the planet, future generations, they are of significantly less, and for some who hold this view, of no importance. 

My belief is that we exist not as atomised individuals but as people shaped and defined by our relationships. Relationship is the fundamental building block of our society.  

In my view, there is nothing, therefore, without society, nothing without community and connection.  

We thrive, we flourish, we are most ourselves not when we stand alone, but when we stand with others.  

On this worldview, we are genuinely all in it together. If one child in our community hurts, we all hurt. If one child struggles, we all struggle. 

That is the principle, but there is also what poverty means in practice – for each child, each family and for our land. 

I care so much about eradicating child poverty because I believe it is wrong to condemn any child to a life of disadvantage simply because of the economic circumstances into which they were born.

There is a moral imperative – helping our most disadvantaged children is the right thing to do – but there is also an economic and a social imperative. 

Scotland will never reach its full potential unless and until each and every one of us is able to flourish. 

I think of all the lost potential because poverty leads to lower achievement at school. 

I think of the resources that are needed to repair the damage caused when a child is brought up hungry, or lives in a damp or a draughty home.  

Too much has already been lost. Too much damage has already been done. Too many people and communities left behind. 

My final reason for choosing the eradication of child poverty as my government’s most important priority is what it says about the sort of country that Scotland can become. 

Not only the Scotland that is, but the Scotland that is possible. 

People often say that the eradication of child poverty is an impossibility. That is true if Scotland remains the same as it is today, but my ambition – and looking around this room I think also our ambition - is for a very different Scotland.  

I would like you to imagine for a moment, to imagine a Scotland where no child lives in poverty.  

What does this Scotland look like? 

It is a wealthier Scotland. We have made the most of our vast renewable energy wealth to bring new jobs and opportunities across our land.  

There are clear and direct benefits for the people of Scotland - a restored manufacturing base, a green reindustrialisation of our land, lower household fuel bills, low energy costs for industry fuelling inward investment and business growth.  

More jobs, better jobs. Higher wages. Ongoing opportunities to learn and develop new skills. Growing, Scottish-owned companies. A spirit of entrepreneurialism, ambition and hope. No ceiling on what any Scottish child can achieve. 

But wealth on its own is not enough. It is a fairer Scotland too, with our nation’s wealth shared more equally amongst us.  

The gap between the highest and lowest incomes reduced. Less wealth inequality, so all of our citizens have assets – pensions, savings, and if they wish, a home that they own. The wealth of all increasing, but the wealth of those with least growing the fastest. 

Imagine it. 

Among the world’s wealthiest countries in the world, the five with the lowest rates of child poverty are Denmark, population 6 million, Slovenia, population 2.1 million, Finland, population 5.6 million, Czech Republic, 10.5 million, Norway, population 5.5 million. 

These countries are amongst the most equal in the world. 

Why not, therefore, Scotland, with a population of 5.4 million? 

It is a Scotland with responsive, flexible, person-centred public services – able to respond to families in crisis, able to support those knocked off course, whether by ill health, ill fortune or by personal choices. 

It is a Scotland with strong, vibrant communities, and a system of lifelong education that encourages and enables all of us to reach our full potential.

How do we build this Scotland? I won’t pretend it is easy, but I will also never agree that it is beyond the limits of what is possible for our nation – especially if we ensure that more of the decisions about Scotland are taken by and for the people of Scotland. 

If we want it, if we prioritise it, if we make it our goal, then together we can make real progress towards achieving it. 

I believe with every fibre of my being that the more decisions we take here in Scotland, the better for Scotland, because no one cares more about this country than the people who live here.  

We’ve got what it takes to both imagine and to create a better Scotland - of that I have no doubt - because there is nothing wrong with Scotland that can’t be fixed by what is right with Scotland. 

I have given you some sense of why eradicating child poverty is so important to me and in the remainder of my remarks I want to set out some of the actions my government is taking, and what more we hope to achieve, so we can continue to make progress towards our goal. 

The first is the choices we made in our budget – a budget that I am increasingly hopeful will receive the backing of the Scottish parliament. 

When it comes to child poverty, the cornerstone of our approach is investment in more dignified and generous social security support. 

Our range of family benefits makes a difference straightaway by putting money directly into people’s pockets, helping people with the day-to-day essentials and the cost of living. That includes the Scottish child payment, which, this coming year, is expected to support around 330,000 children – financial support for families which is unparalleled across the United Kingdom. 

It includes increased investment in affordable housing, and I would be keen to hear from you today about how we can make sure this extra investment is most effectively targeted to support the families in greatest need in our society. 

And of course, it includes the resources we need to build the systems that will allow us to effectively remove the 2-child cap for claimants in Scotland.  

I can offer you two guarantees on this question today. 

My first guarantee is that if we are able to safely get the systems up and running in this coming year, the first payments will be made in this coming year – helping to lift thousands more children out of poverty. 

My second guarantee is that if the United Kingdom Government does the right thing and abolishes the two-child cap across the United Kingdom, the resources we have committed to this policy will continue to be used on measures to eradicate child poverty in Scotland. 

The second principal strand of our approach is the action we are taking to create more person-centred, family-centred, public services. 

Child poverty is a deeply entrenched and systemic problem. There are no easy solutions. It is a societal challenge that will not be addressed with simply more of the same. 

I favour long term, sustainable solutions over quick fixes.  I favour an approach in which the Scottish Government works side-by-side with local government, with organisations and local communities.  And I favour innovation from the ground up. 

There are so many examples of outstanding practice happening across Scotland and many of you will be responsible for many of these examples.  There are so many groundbreaking advancements springing up, sometimes brought on by nothing more than necessity and a bright idea.   

We need to identify those innovations, understand what makes them successful, and seek to replicate them where possible across the country. 

For the last two years we have worked intensively with three local authorities to test new ways of tackling child poverty, working in collaboration with them and, crucially, with third sector partners to provide locally based wrap around support to families. 

We are now expanding this approach to 5 more areas across Scotland as part of our Fairer Futures Partnerships programme. 

And through this year’s budget, we are doubling the money available to develop and to support this work.

In this way, my government is seeking to create the conditions for innovation and change that best meet the needs of our communities – change that ensures families receive the right support, at the right time, and for as long as they need that support. 

The third strand of our approach is through education.  

Alongside the challenges we face as a country, I want to acknowledge also where clear progress has been made. 

There are many initiatives that the government has introduced since 2007 and the one that I am most proud of is the expansion of early learning and childcare provision. It includes 1140 hours of ELC for all 3 and 4-year-olds, regardless of their parents’ working status, and also for thousands of 2-year-olds from some of our most disadvantaged communities. 

Our early adopter communities, now in six parts of the country, are enabling us to offer childcare support, including wraparound care before or after school, specifically designed to help tackle child poverty by supporting parents in work or parents to get into work. 

Pupil equity funding, paid direct to head teachers, enables them to direct resources in response to the specific needs and challenges within their school community, helping to reduce the poverty-related attainment.

But there is more that I would like to do. That includes working with our local government partners to ensure that over the next five years, we take forward a relentless focus on ensuring that young people are enabled to overcome the barriers created by poverty through the positive impact of the education system in Scotland. 

I want children in our most disadvantaged communities to have the same opportunities – after school clubs, personal tuition, smaller class sizes – that are enjoyed by pupils in our most advantaged communities. 

We only have to look at The Big Noise, which started as a pilot here in Stirling, in Raploch, to make music more accessible to young people, to see what such opportunities can do to transform lives. 

 As a nation, I want us to think big and to act bold about our future.  

Put bluntly, nobody else is going to fix Scotland’s deep-seated challenges but us. 

As First Minister, I am committed to putting in the hard yards – to bringing people together and identifying lasting solutions. Yes, in many cases these involve investment – but it is also about ensuring support is joined up, and there where families need it. Working harder – but also working smarter.  

So, my appeal to you all today is to help me in that journey. I said earlier - you are the experts. You are close to the problem of child poverty. I want to work with you to deliver the solutions to the challenge of child poverty in Scotland. 

To be successful we need to bring together national and local government, public authorities, third sector organisations, charities and philanthropic interests to create a coalition with a national purpose to eradicate child poverty in Scotland.  

If we all work collaboratively, if we all focus on how the money that is available can have the maximum impact, if we all identify what works and if we all make that happen relentlessly across Scotland, I believe we have the potential to make a real and radical difference in the lives of children in Scotland. 

All of us care about Scotland’s future, and that’s why I want people in Scotland to see tackling child poverty as everybody’s business – because there is no greater long-term investment we can make in our future and our success as a nation.

I invite you to work with me and my government to change the lives of so many children and families in Scotland for the better and we can do that by creating that coalition, determined to end child poverty in Scotland.