Solidarity condemned as shameful the evidence from the Save the Children charity and Scottish Executive figures that almost nearly half a million children will this winter live in unheated homes in Britain, and one in five Scottish households have to survive on less than £10,000 per year.

The recent rocketing price rises for gas and electricity is driving hundreds of thousands of people into fuel poverty, levels of which have doubled in the last three years.  Solidarity MSP for Glasgow, Tommy Sheridan, condemned the obscene profits of the private energy companies:

“The Scottish Executive’s claims that they are on course to eradicate child poverty are a shameful con. It is clear, for example, that the 5 price rises in the last two years in fuel bills are dragging thousands of Scots into poverty.  Scottish ministers are doing nothing to challenge what is now robbery on a grand scale. It is a 21st century scandal that privatised power companies can make billions of pounds in profit at the cost of the misery that these price rises cause for ordinary families. We demand urgent action to slash fuel costs. And that can best be achieved by bringing these companies into public ownership and using their ill-gotten profits to reduce the burden of fuel costs.”

Solidarity today said that if the political establishment were serious about eradicating poverty they would support the fight for a decent minimum wage to end poverty.  Figures released to Solidarity MSPs showed that 20% of Scottish households have an income of less than £10,000, half get by on less than £20,000.

Rosemary Byrne MSP called for the Government in Westminster and the Executive in Scotland to address the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots:

“What the Save the Children report shows is that 90% of those adults surveyed were going without in order that their children had access to the basic essentials of life. Why are people forced to make such a choice. If the minimum wage, benefits and pension were urgently uplifted to reflect the real costs of living and bringing up a family we would solve this scandal.

“This Christmas we will see a microcosm of what free-market capitalism means for working class people in Scotland and Britain today. The top bosses of Britain’s companies will share £8.8 billion in bonuses, shares and wages. And yet for 150,000 Farepak customers and the millions of working families struggling with low pay it will be a different story. Rather than ending poverty as the Scottish Executive claim, they, alongside Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, are guilty of acting in the interests of the rich."