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NICOLA Sturgeon will pledge to give a boxful of baby essentials to every new mum as she fights to close Scotland’s yawning attainment gap.

The SNP’s manifesto, published this week, says the sturdy cardboard boxes will include clothes, toys, nappies and a built-in mattress to turn the containers into cots.

Scotland’s baby boxes will be based on a scheme in Finland, which has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world.

The boxes have been hailed as a potential breakthrough in the fight against cot death.

Mums and dads are advised to allow their infants to sleep on their backs in the converted boxes in the same room as their parents.

The election promise is part of the SNP’s plan to give all children the best start in life.

At the party’s manifesto launch in Edinburgh on Wednesday, leader Sturgeon will also pledge an extra 500 health visitors to give all children a health check aged 30 months.

Every new mum will receive advice and information on their employment and maternity rights.

And the SNP will promise a £600 maternity grant to low-income mums – plus two more payments when children start nursery and go to school.

The First Minister wants to be judged on closing the attainment gap between our richest and poorest children.

She said: “Our manifesto will set out plans to transform Scotland and to ensure all our children have an equal start in life.

“Providing help to new mums, increasing the number of health visitors and extending the family nurse partnership all have a role to play. The baby box is such a simple idea but has been shown to have a real impact, reducing child mortality and helping families at the start of a child’s life.

“By providing every newborn with a baby box, we can help child health – and by providing greater support to new families, we will also help to tackle child poverty and improve the chances of some of our most deprived children.”

Finnish babies sleep in boxes for the first three to four months of their lives. Many parents put the boxes by their beds at night.

The idea was introduced in Finland 80 years ago when 10 per cent of children died before reaching their first birthday. Today the rate is 0.2 per cent, one of the lowest in the world. The UK rate is 0.4 per cent.

Countries like South Africa, Zambia and Argentina have also introduced baby boxes.

Sturgeon’s pledges follow the launch of the Sunday Mail’s Every Child, Every Opportunity campaign to help Scotland’s lost children – babies who are born into poverty and never escape.

They are more than a year behind better-off kids by the time they reach school and the gap widens as they grow older. They are far more likely to leave with no qualifications and far less likely to find a job, training or go on to further education.

After the launch of our campaign in February, Sturgeon pledged to make closing the gap between haves and have-nots the priority of her time in office.

She said her government’s main aim would be to improve the standard of teaching in nursery classes.

And at the SNP’s spring conference in Glasgow last month, Sturgeon pledged to increase the budget of the Scottish Attainment Fund to £750million over the next five years. The fund aims to reduce the performance gap between pupils from rich and poor backgrounds.

Sturgeon also vowed to double free childcare for parents to 30 hours a week and provide free school meals in nurseries.

And she is determined that every nursery in the poorest neighbourhoods will have an extra qualified teacher or childcare graduate by 2018.

She told the Sunday Mail: “The one idea I think that will potentially be the most transformative over the next generation is focusing on not just giving children more hours in nurseries but also the quality of the education and nurturing support.

“It is about investing in the bricks and mortar and the capacity but also about what you do with the children.

“Childcare helps parents get out to work but if you only see it like that then you just put them in nurseries and let them run about all day.

“It means having teachers in there and having quality of provision.”

Education and early years care is a priority for all parties as they campaign towards the Holyrood poll on May 5.

Yesterday, Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie vowed to put early-years learning and education at the heart of the next parliament.

The Lib Dems want to add 1p to income tax for those earning more than £21,500 to raise around £500million each year for education.

The cash would go towards doubling nursery care for three and four-year-olds and extending it to all two-year-olds, a £190million “pupil

premium” for disadvantaged schoolchildren and £108million for college funding.

Rennie said: “Our penny for education would make such a difference. It means more kids who are struggling getting the help they need to get on in life.

“More toddlers in nurseries, making a big impact on their future life chances. And more young people and adults getting a second chance in college.

“The challenge for the other parties is to match our vision for a better education for Scotland’s children.”

In February, Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale revealed her plan to more than double a grant for new mums on benefits to help the poorest children get the best start in life.

(Image: SWNS)

The £500 Sure Start Maternity Grant was introduced by Labour in 2002 for expectant mums in receipt of benefits but the amount has not been increased since.

Dugdale, who will unveil her party’s manifesto next week, vowed to increase the payment to £1030.

The Scottish Tory manifesto, published on Wednesday, said there should be childcare for one and two-year-olds from poorer backgrounds.

It said free childcare hours should be more flexible with parents able to use their entitlement for childminders.