To govern is to choose and last month we saw some very different choices being made by political leaders in the UK. In a film studio outside London, Keir Starmer unveiled his “plan for change”, with a series of measurable milestones by which he wants his Labour government to be judged. These include a commitment to drive up living standards, and specific targets on housebuilding and NHS waiting lists. But although the plan says the government wants to tackle “the scar of child poverty”, this was not mentioned in Starmer’s speech. His government has not yet committed to any child poverty targets.
Significantly, too, although the prime minister pledged to improve living standards across the country, the Plan for Change makes no explicit commitment on how future economic growth will be distributed. Current modelling suggests that lower-income households will see their incomes fall over this parliament under the policies and economic prospects the government inherited from its predecessor. The omissions in Starmer’s speech may represent an unwillingness to pay sustained attention to those at the sharp end of the continued squeeze on living standards. And they are especially worrying in the context of an increasingly disunited UK, where English children risk being left behind.
Meanwhile, political leaders elsewhere in the UK were making very different choices as 2024 came to an end. At Holyrood, the Scottish National Party pledged to (in effect) scrap the two-child benefit limit for Scottish families. In Stormont, the executive agreed to extend welfare mitigations payments: these in practice undo the impact of the Benefit Cap and the Bedroom Tax for families in Northern Ireland, and also provide non-repayable grants to offset the five-week wait for a first Universal Credit payment.
These latest announcements add to a picture of growing diversity in the design, delivery and generosity of social security depending on where you live. In Scotland, from 2026, when the commitment to scrap the two-child limit should come into force, a family with four children aged 15, 12, seven and four could receive almost £10,000 more a year in social security support than a family south of the border, thanks to the reversal of the two-child limit decision and the targeted Scottish Child Payment (which provides a flat-rate payment of £26 per child per week for children under 16 in low-income families).
Too often, we still talk as if there is a single UK social security system when devolution and different political choices mean this has not been the case for some time. Devolution creates opportunities for politicians—and their electorate—to prioritise redistributive action or, as in Scotland, to make a concerted effort to tackle child poverty. The increased devolution of social security has happened slowly and unevenly across the nations, with Scotland having the most legislative freedom and Wales the least. In Northern Ireland, the principle of parity meant that social security policy had for years mirrored Westminster, but this principle buckled amid strong political opposition to the welfare reform agenda pursued by David Cameron and George Osborne.
At the same time, there has been an increase in the decentralisation of social security support to local authorities. Westminster has become increasingly reliant on discretionary, localised programmes of crisis support. Programmes tailored to local needs and priorities sound ideal, but successive Westminster governments’ approach to decentralisation has often meant giving local authorities obligations but no funds. This has led to a range of schemes whose generosity, eligibility requirements and form (such as cash, vouchers or services) can vary massively depending on which local authority an individual lives under.
As well as distinct approaches to policy, the nations have clear differences in their narrative and rhetoric on social security. Contrast Scottish first minister John Swinney’s ardent pledge to eradicate child poverty with UK Labour’s much more timid approach—which, thus far, has given as much attention to driving down welfare fraud as it has to addressing the inadequacy of the social security system.
The rhetorical and policy differences together create very different policy landscapes and will increasingly lead to place-based gaps both in provision and, potentially, in rates of child poverty and longer-term outcomes for children.
In Westminster, Labour has to deliver this year’s UK Child Strategy, which needs to be ambitious enough to make a real and lasting difference. For this strategy to be effective, the government needs to learn from the place-based differences that already exist, and to factor these differences into the overarching approach. Labour will need to recognise the different policy levers available at different tiers of government within the UK; and it will need to engage and collaborate across these different tiers.
Beyond this, we urgently need a UK-wide recognition that child poverty is one of the key challenges facing this country, and one that is sensitive to policy change. We can drive levels down with a concerted combination of political will and effectively targeted investment. And that is true wherever in the UK you look.
