SNP Manifesto: Future child poverty

"Experts [say] … that Tory policy will drive 1 million more children across the UK into poverty. Just think about that. 1 million more children.  That means that by 2021, there could be more than 5 million children across the UK, the equivalent to the total population of Scotland, living in poverty in one of the richest countries in the world."

• The Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think tank, projects there will be slightly over a million more children in relative poverty by the end of this parliament than there were at the 2015 general election, and 700,000 more than there are right now.
• It projects there are about 4.4 million children in relative poverty at the moment, and that the number will rise to to 5.1 million by 2021/22, (close to the current population of Scotland). About four million children were in relative poverty around the time of the last election.
• It puts about half this change down to a series of Conservative tax and benefits policies, such as freezing working-age benefits, the two-child limit for tax credits, and introducing Universal Credit.
• Relative poverty is one of several possible measures of poverty, and it expects the rise in absolute poverty to be smaller (we explain the difference in our guide to poverty statistics). 3.5 million children were in absolute poverty at the time of the last general election, according to the IFS, against about 3.9 million now and a projected 4.3 million by 2021/22.
• These aren’t complete predictions about the future: they don't try to account for how people might respond to policy changes by, for example, adapting their working habits.