ScotlandCounted

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Who decides what

The UK Government, Scottish Government and councils each control different things. You should not need a politics degree to know who to ask. This page explains the split and shows the exact record.
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legal child-poverty promises for 2023/24 were missed. Every one of them.

What this means

Scotland put four child-poverty promises into law. All four were missed.

The UK Government controls most benefits. The Scottish Government controls the Scottish Child Payment, housing and childcare. Councils deal with homelessness and local services.

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This page records decisions and what happened next. It does not guess what a politician intended. A party is named only when it formed the government that made the decision. If anything here is wrong, tell me and I will correct it publicly.

Four promises written into law

Scotland missed every child-poverty target

These were not aims or ambitions. Parliament wrote four numbers into law and gave itself until 2023/24 to hit them. The widest miss was persistent poverty — children poor in at least three of the last four years — which came in at 23% against a target below 8%.

Relative poverty

Missed

The law said under 18%. What happened: 22%

Absolute poverty

Missed

The law said under 14%. What happened: 17%

Low income and material deprivation

Missed

The law said under 8%. What happened: 9%

Persistent poverty

Missed

The law said under 8%. What happened: 23%

Ministers have confirmed there is no penalty for missing them. Nothing happens next. That is what makes this a question worth putting to the people who voted for the law.

London, Edinburgh and councils control different parts. That makes blame easy and change hard.

The structure, not an accident of politics

Government by government

Who can do what

Three different governments hold three different sets of powers over the same families. Each can point at another and be partly right. That is exactly why nothing gets fixed — and why it matters that you write to the one who can actually act.

Westminster

Write to your MP

The UK Government controls Universal Credit and help with private rent

UK Government decisions reduced help to families

  • The two-child limit ran from April 2017 to April 2026. Families received no normal extra support for a third or later child. A Conservative government introduced the rule. A Labour government kept it for nearly two more years before scrapping it.
  • The benefit freeze from 2016 to 2020 kept payments at the same cash amount while prices rose. During those years Glasgow child poverty rose from 27.1% to 32.2%.
  • Help with private rent has been frozen for much of the last decade, so it fell further behind real rents. Families filled the gap using money meant for food, heating and other basics.
  • About 95% of asylum seekers sent to Scotland were housed in Glasgow without enough money to cover the cost. The council said one group of Home Office decisions could cost it more than £53m.

Holyrood

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The Scottish Government controls housing, childcare and the Scottish Child Payment

Scottish Government promises were missed

  • All four legally binding interim targets for 2023/24 were missed. The exact results were 22% against a target below 18%; 17% against 14%; 9% against 8%; and 23% against 8% for children poor for years.
  • Ministers have conceded there is no penalty for missing them, which raises a fair question about what the legislation was for.
  • Housing has £4.1bn planned, against £8–9.2bn experts say is needed — about half of the higher estimate.
  • Council tax was frozen several times, which limited one of the few ways councils can raise money themselves.
  • The 2026–31 plan spends about £90m a year on job support even though the government's own research says direct family income changes the poverty figure more.

Glasgow City Council

Write to your councillors

Glasgow City Council runs homelessness and local services

Past council decisions still cost Glasgow today

  • The £770m equal pay settlement covered years of underpaying mainly female workers such as carers, cleaners and caterers. The council sold buildings including the City Chambers and Kelvingrove, then rented them back. That now costs £32.1m a year plus inflation.
  • The council has been in a declared housing emergency since November 2023 and expects to keep breaking its legal housing duty into the early 2030s. It spends about £4.5m a month on temporary rooms such as hotels and B&Bs.
  • Both main parties have had long runs at this. Labour ran Glasgow for most of the post-war period; the SNP has run it since 2017. This is not one party's record.

The record, not the promise

How Scotland's MPs actually voted

Every one of these is a real vote in the House of Commons, taken from the official record. A vote is public forever. It is the one thing an MP cannot take back, and it is why writing to them is worth doing.

The first Commons vote on the bill · 3 February 2026

Scrapping the two-child limit

The two-child limit was the rule that stopped families getting the usual support for a third or later child. This bill removed it.

Scotland's 57 MPs

  • 42voted for it
  • 5voted against it
  • 10not recorded

457 to 104 across the whole Commons — it passed

Check this vote on the official record →

The final Commons vote on the same bill · 23 February 2026

Scrapping the two-child limit

The last chance to stop or pass the bill. It passed, and the two-child limit ended in April 2026.

Scotland's 57 MPs

  • 31voted for it
  • 4voted against it
  • 22not recorded

362 to 84 across the whole Commons — it passed

Check this vote on the official record →

One of those MPs is yours. Find your area and I will show you how they were recorded, by name, on each of these votes.

Find how my MP votedEmail them about it

The one thing that has been proved

When payments went up, child poverty fell

This is not a theory. It already happened, and it happened in Glasgow. During the pandemic, Universal Credit went up by £20 a week and furlough kept wages coming in. Child poverty fell. The next year the extra help stopped, and it went straight back up.

  1. 2019/20

    32.2%

    Before

    Nine straight years of rising child poverty in Glasgow.

  2. 2020/21

    29.4%

    Payments went up

    £20 a week more on Universal Credit, plus furlough. The figure fell for the first time in a decade.

  3. 2021/22

    32.0%

    The extra help ended

    The £20 was withdrawn in October 2021. Almost the entire fall was undone within the year.

Government choices moved the figure in both directions inside two years. Nobody has to argue about whether this works. , and no single government owns the whole result — but the lever itself is not in doubt. See the full ten-year chart.

Where this comes from

Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan progress report 2024–25

Scottish Government

Outturns against the four statutory interim targets in the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017.
Two-child limit abolition and Scottish Child Payment rates

CPAG in Scotland

Confirmation of the April 2026 abolition and current Scottish Child Payment rates.
Glasgow's housing emergency: submission to the Local Government Committee

Glasgow City Council / Scottish Parliament

Temporary accommodation spending and the projected unfunded homelessness shortfall to 2027/28.
What reaching Scotland's child poverty targets requires

Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Modelled effect and cost of individual policy options.
No shortcuts to Scotland's child poverty targets

Fraser of Allander Institute

Independent confirmation that income transfers, not employment programmes, drive the child poverty figure.
Asylum dispersal in Scotland

Migration Scotland

Glasgow's share of Scotland's dispersed asylum seekers.

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