Chris Murray column: Budget a turning point on child poverty

For too long, families in Musselburgh and across Scotland have been battling rising living costs with wages and social security that simply haven’t kept pace.

This Budget begins the long-overdue task of putting children at the centre of economic policy, not as an afterthought but as a priority.

I have to admit that listening to the Chancellor deliver the Budget left me with two very different emotions. The first was genuine pride: ending the unfair two-child limit will lift around half a million children out of poverty, a transformative step that is long overdue; 1,340 children across Edinburgh East and Musselburgh alone will be lifted out of poverty when the cap lifts in April.

But alongside that pride was real frustration. The UK Government has given the Scottish Government a record level of funding. But, despite 20 years in office, the SNP Government has failed to deliver the improvements families desperately need and it is now clinging on to power without offering a new vision for the future. Next May gives Scotland the chance to choose a better path and a government focused on delivering for children and families.

The Budget’s new measures to raise the minimum wage ensure that a quarter of a million Scots will receive a pay boost. This increase will put more money directly into the pockets of low-paid workers, many of whom are parents juggling multiple responsibilities just to keep their households afloat.

There is much more to do. No single Budget can undo a decade and a half of brutal austerity and rising hardship. But this one sets us on a better path: a country where no child’s future is defined by the postcode they were born in, and where every family has the dignity of security and opportunity.