SCOTLAND is becoming engulfed in a devastating child poverty crisis, Gordon Brown will warn today – as he highlights figures showing poverty among youngsters is set to double in the coming years.

The former Prime Minister will say a “generation of invisibles” – neglected boys and girls whose plight is ignored – is being created by the ongoing failure of political leaders to confront the problem.

He will point to a Scottish Government report published earlier this year which projected more than 400,000 children will fall into poverty during the 2020s, up from 210,000 just before 2010.

Mr Brown will be appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival to discuss his autobiography, My Life, Our Times.

He will say: “Forecasting Child Poverty in Scotland – an April, 2018 report for the Scottish Government – reveals that almost two Scottish children in every five could be in poverty by the end of the 2020s – as poverty numbers rise from just under 31 per cent of children in 2017-18 to 34.5% by 2020-21 then to 38% by 2027-28.

“It is time to awaken the entire country to the devastating but virtually ignored and, to many, invisible rise in UK child poverty which is on the road to doubling since 2010 – to 3.9 million in 2022, before housing costs are calculated, while 5.2m children are now expected to be in poverty after housing costs are taken into account.

“Be in no doubt. This has now reached epidemic proportions not least because some estimates from the respected Resolution Foundation suggest child poverty was down to 1.6m in 2010.

“Child poverty is already the biggest social injustice of our generation and it is still accelerating out of control with child benefit and other child support frozen or falling in value. And the Scottish Government-commissioned report shows that neither the UK nor the Scottish Government are willing to take the bold measures essential to tackle it.”

Mr Brown will say today’s “gig and zero hours economy” has broken the old social consensus that if you worked hard you would make a decent living, adding: “Kirkcaldy – where I grew up – now has the fifth worst area for child poverty in Scotland – and the worst outside Glasgow."

He will insist that without action “the prospects for nearly half a generation of children are today in tatters”, and accuse the Westminster and Holyrood governments of “shamefully ignoring this national disgrace”.

The Scottish Government’s report shows the escalating poverty crisis is driven by “Conservative cuts to social security benefits and tax credits and the introduction of Universal Credit," he will say.

But the former MP will argue: “While the Tories have imposed severe and inhumane cuts that are hammering the most vulnerable in our society, the report is also blunt about the failure of the SNP to address rising poverty, despite the substantial powers the Scottish Parliament now has. As the report concludes, in the starkest of terms ‘the tax and social security reforms recently announced by the Scottish Government will not fundamentally change the overall trajectory of child poverty in Scotland’.

Mr Brown will also attack the SNP’s latest independence blueprint, suggesting it would prioritise reducing debt over tackling poverty and inequality.

He will call for an increase in child tax credit as the most cost-effective way to help lift families out of poverty, adding: “We cannot keep ignoring child poverty. We cannot condemn almost half a generation to poverty.

"In the year 2018, we are surely capable of giving every boy and girl across the United Kingdom an opportunity and the best start in life.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said:”We are committed to actions to help eradicate child poverty in Scotland by 2030, and we have outlined key measures as to how that goal can be achieved.”