TORY austerity has left more than half a million children in the UK destitute and worse is to come, the Scottish National Party (SNP) warned today.

SNP shadow work and pensions secretary Neil Gray MP urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to make 2021 the year he makes up for the decade of austerity cuts which contributed to a rise in child poverty.

He said said the government must “boost incomes, lift children out of poverty and invest in their futures.”

Mr Gray also called for the £20 increase in universal credit payments to be made permanent, for the scrapping of the five-week delay in making universal-credit payments and abolition of the limit of benefits to two children per family.

He said that the government should adopt the Scottish Parliament’s payment of £10 per child in benefits to low-income families.

Research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation revealed that a staggering 2.4 million people experienced destitution in 2019, a 54 per cent increase since 2017, including 550,000 children, up 52 per cent since 2017. 

In addition, it found that one in seven (14 per cent) of people experiencing destitution are in paid work.

Gray said: “The UK government has the opportunity next year to lift families and children out of poverty and prevent a further 700,000 people — 300,000 of which are children — across the UK from being cut adrift into poverty and hardship. 

“The Prime Minister must seize it with both hands and not miss another opportunity to do the right thing.

“We cannot leave the futures of children in Scotland in the hands of a man who had to be publicly shamed into delivering free school meals for hungry children.”