Scotland's First Minister John Swinney and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden held a press conference during the British-Irish Council (BIC) summit in Edinburgh, where Pat McFadden defended Labour's record on reducing child poverty.
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00:00We are taking the steps to abolish the two-child limit because we are confident that it will lift children out of poverty,
00:09which will complement other measures that we are taking such as the Scottish child payment which help to keep children out of poverty.
00:16I discussed the issue with the Prime Minister in our bilateral meeting this morning
00:21and the Prime Minister indicated with a specific point that for us to be able to do this
00:26we need to have access to data which is held by the Department of Work and Pensions
00:31and the Prime Minister indicated to me that he would work constructively with us on taking forward that commitment,
00:38which is welcome because I need the co-operation of the United Kingdom Government
00:42to enable us to achieve our objectives of lifting the two-child limit
00:47and enabling us to make further progress in our work to eradicate child poverty.
00:51The desire to reduce child poverty is shared by both governments.
00:56We have a Child Poverty Taskforce which met in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago.
01:02We don't believe it's just about benefits.
01:04We think there are other things that contribute to child poverty
01:08and the conclusions of the Child Poverty Taskforce that we've established will report next year.
01:18Well, the First Minister's Government, like any government, will have to identify the money for that.
01:24That's not happened yet.
01:27We believe this is about more than benefits.
01:31We have a Child Poverty Taskforce looking at this.
01:35They will report next year.
01:38We had a very good record the last time we were in government on reducing child poverty
01:44and we hope to also reduce it while we're in government.