Humza Yousaf has denied Nicola Sturgeon failed to deliver on promises she made to young Scots during her time in office.
The First Minister today defended the record of his predecessor after a scathing assessment from the outgoing Scottish Children's Commissioner.
Yousaf insisted his Government’s defining mission was to reduce child poverty after it was blasted by Bruce Adamson, who will shortly stand down as the country's children's rights tsar.
He took aim at the efforts of the government when it was led by Sturgeon to reduce the education-related attainment gap and alleviate child poverty.
The former SNP leader previously claimed she wanted to be judged on education during her tenure.
But Yousaf has jumped to the defence of Sturgeon after Adamson said she had “absolutely” failed on the task.
Speaking on a visit to Dundee, he said: “I have the greatest of respect for the outgoing children’s commissioner, but I fundamentally disagree with Bruce Adamson about what he said about my predecessor or indeed what he is saying on the Scottish Government.”
He said “game-changing” policies like the Scottish Child Payment, free bus travel for under-22s, and free school meals had been a defining legacy of Sturgeon’s administration.
But looking to his own policies, he said: “I am the first to accept that more has to be done to reduce our child poverty rates in Scotland, which are too high.
“And that’s why I’ve made it a defining mission of the Government that I lead.”
Adamson had claimed Yousaf "may have made some big promises before becoming First Minister, but we’ve not seen anything on delivering those.”
He also raised concerns about the lack of movement on incorporating the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into Scots Law.
A Bill was unanimously passed by MSPs nearly two years ago but it was deemed by the UK Supreme Court to have overstepped the bounds of Holyrood and was struck down.
Yousaf also committed to putting “pace behind” working with the UK Government on reintroducing the Bill – but he stressed the importance of not raising the Bill again in Holyrood until ministers were sure it would not be blocked.
He said: “I think part of his concern, of course, was that we haven’t made enough or sufficient progress in relation to the incorporation of the UNCRC, I think that’s fair criticism.”
He added: “Now we have to work with the UK Government when it comes to the re-introduction of that Bill. What I don’t want to do is reintroduce a Bill and there’s another referral, for example, to the Supreme Court.
“We are working with the UK Government and I’m going to put some pace behind that to make sure we can reintroduce that Bill sooner rather than later.”
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