I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the new MPs who will be representing my constituents at Westminster, Blair McDougall MP for East Renfrewshire and Joanna Baxter MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South.

While there may be areas where we have different views, I do look forward to building a constructive working relationship to ensure our constituents receive appropriate representation at all levels of government.

One area where I hope agreement can be reached is on the vital importance of eradicating child poverty. The SNP has been at the forefront of the opposition to the two-child benefit cap since its introduction in 2017 and throughout the General Election campaign we have been calling for the Labour Party to do the right thing and deliver the change people in Scotland were promised by scrapping the two-child cap in its programme for government.

This week, King Charles delivered a speech to mark the State Opening of Parliament in Westminster. The King’s Speech included 35 draft laws which the incoming Labour Government plan to introduce in the coming months. Unfortunately, action on child poverty was absent in the King’s Speech and it would seem that the Labour Government are committed to current restrictions on benefits for people with more than two children.

SNP MPs and MSPs have spoken out very clearly against the two-child cap in both Westminster and Holyrood on numerous occasions and my SNP colleagues in Westminster will bring forward an amendment to abolish the two-child cap and tackle child poverty. I sincerely hope that Labour MPs will do the right thing and support this amendment.

Figures published by Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) last week found 1.6 million children are impacted by the Labour government's two child benefit cap - with families losing up to £3,455 a year per child. The charity found 300,000 children would be lifted out of poverty, and a further 700,000 would be in less deep poverty, if the two-child cap was abolished.

People in Scotland were asked by the Labour Party to vote for change at Westminster. That promise of change must now be honoured, not broken, by the Labour government. The decision over whether to scrap the two-child cap is an early and important test of whether the Labour government is capable of delivering the full-scale change people in Scotland were promised - or whether it will impose the same damaging cuts and failed policies as the Tories.

Before concluding this week's column, I would like to acknowledge the contributions of my SNP colleagues, who have now left Westminster. Locally, Gavin Newlands, Kirsten Oswald, and Mhairi Black worked diligently to represent their constituents and to support them through some of the most challenging times in living memory.

I am sincerely grateful for their years of dedicated public service, and I would like to wish them and their staff all the best for the future.