Why are diseases of poverty on the increase in Scotland?

The SNP Government is spending half a billion on child poverty, so why is it getting worse?

 

Where does the money go? What is the Scottish Government doing with it all? 

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Scotland has been spending between 20% and 30% more per head on public services than England for most of the last decade. Higher earning Scots pay higher rates of tax.  Yet the beneficiaries of this largesse seem impossible to identify.

This allegedly social democratic government should surely have eradicated poverty after sixteen years in office, yet according to the Scottish Government’s own figures a quarter of children are living in poverty and, on some measures, the numbers are actually increasing. Diseases of poverty like rickets, we learned this week, have been rising rapidly in Scotland - up one third since 2018.  TB is also on the increase. Why? And why is Humza Yousaf heading for financial cliff edge next year? Read on: