SCOTTISH and UK governments should be working together to tackle “completely unacceptable” levels of poverty, according to former prime minister Gordon Brown.

Mr Brown made the remarks speaking at the Edinburgh Book Festival, after his think tank — Our Scottish Future — published a survey showing 53 per cent of respondents agreed that after a “decade of constitutional debate, Scotland now feels stuck in a rut.”

Just weeks after Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer pledged to keep the two-child cap, Mr Brown urged politicians to ditch the “Punch and Judy show” that he said characterised Scottish and UK government relations  and “work together in the interests of the people of Scotland.”

His comments come after latest Scottish government data shows that there are 1.1 million people in Scotland living in poverty, including almost one in four children.

“Something has got to be done about the terrible poverty in our country,” he said.

“People are in many cases near destitution and this is something that is completely unacceptable in the year 2023.

“The next winter is going to be as bad, if not worse, than the last winter.

“The last winter it was energy prices and food prices, this winter it is rent and other bills … bills have gone up in almost every area and families can not make ends meet.”

However, he provoked the ire of SNP and Greens as he branded Social Security Scotland’s (SSS) £700m start-up cost an unnecessary act of “ultra-nationalism” and called it a “status symbol,” when the Department for Work and Pensions could deliver Scottish adjustments.

The coalition partners rallied to defend the SSS, though appeared divided on whether Scotland’s budget is or is not “fixed.”

SNP MP David Linden accused Mr Brown of “siding with the Tories by attacking Scotland’s social security system,” saying: “We’ve used the limited powers we do have alongside our fixed budget, to make Scotland fairer.”

Green MSP Maggie Chapman said: “Using our influence here, we have more than doubled the Scottish Child Payment and raised benefits in line with inflation.

“I am proud that all of this is being funded by the most progressive tax system anywhere in the UK.”

A UK government spokesperson said: “We have been consistently clear that the priority for people in Scotland is helping with the cost of living by halving inflation, tackling the NHS waiting times and growing our economy across the whole of the UK.”