Responding to the publication of the latest poverty statistics, Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison said:
“We recognise too many people are living in poverty which is why we are committed to break the cycle of poverty in Scotland within the scope of our powers and budget.
“Levels of poverty have fallen less than we would have hoped, given the Scottish Government’s significant investment.
“However these figures cover the period when the Covid-19 pandemic was having a significant economic impact and progress has also been hindered by the devastating impact of the UK Government’s decade of austerity and its welfare cuts for many Scottish families.
“In this financial year we have allocated almost £3 billion to a range of measures which will help mitigate the impacts of the cost of living crisis on households with £1 billion of this only available in Scotland.
“As well as the game-changing Scottish Child Payment, we support families in variety of ways including free child care, free bus travel for under 22s, free school meals to around 145,000 pupils, and we have made significant increases to both our fuel and food insecurity funds and have also made £2.5 million available to local authorities to boost the Scottish Welfare Fund.
“We will continue to use all the powers and resources available to us to provide immediate support to families and to tackle the underlying causes of poverty whilst seeking more powers so we can use all the levers we need to enable us to truly tackle poverty.”
