FIRST Minister John Swinney has vowed “sustained focus” on eradicating child poverty in Scotland despite actions of the Labour government, which he claims have made the challenge “ever more difficult.”

As the SNP leader prepares to set out his programme for government before next year’s Holyrood elections, Mr Swinney took aim at Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s plans to slash billions from welfare spending.

“I just cannot fathom how the Labour Party live with themselves with what they are doing,” he said.

Mr Swinney’s comments come less than two months since his government announced relative child poverty in Scotland was 22 per cent, and absolute poverty 17 per cent, in 2023-24, a fall on the previous year but well short of its targets of 18 and 14 per cent respectively.

“The UK government is now undertaking a programme of welfare reform which, on its own estimation, is likely to increase levels of child poverty,” he said.

“The measures we’re trying to take forward in Scotland will have to work harder because the UK government is making our task ever more difficult.

“I almost find this inconceivable that I’m having to contemplate measures to deal with rising child poverty because of a Labour government.

“In all my lifetime, Labour governments came into office to try to reduce child poverty, and to their credit, in the early part of the century, they did that.”

Slamming Mr Starmer’s administration, Mr Swinney added: “I don’t understand what the point of the Labour government is.”

A Westminister government spokesperson said the party is “reforming our broken welfare system, so it helps people into good jobs, boosting living standards and putting money in people’s pockets.”

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar meanwhile responded: “Like clockwork, headline-grabbing plans are made and abandoned, and ambitious targets are set and missed.

“For 18 years, John Swinney has been at the heart of this failing government, and he cannot pretend otherwise.

“[He] was the man who broke it and now wants to pretend he is the one to fix it.

“As the election approaches, the SNP will ramp up the empty promises once again, but Scotland will not forget the record of failure that hangs over John Swinney and his government.

“If the SNP had the answers to Scotland’s problems, we would have seen them by now.”