It is a disgrace that 40,000 children in Leicester are now living in poverty, including almost 12,000 children here in Leicester West. That’s 40% of all children in our city.
Today I held a debate in Parliament demanding action from the Tories to end this scandal, including scrapping Universal Credit, tackling low pay and insecure work and ending Britain’s housing crisis.
You can watch the full debate here: https://parliamentlive.tv/…/70d214c9-be29-44fd-96eb-3fce521…
As chair of Feeding Leicester, which is working to end food poverty in the city, I am especially worried that a no-deal Brexit will make the already unacceptably high levels of poverty we face even worse.
Our foodbanks have warned that no-deal could lead to big increases in demand at the same time as supply is reduced, because there will be less surplus food available from supermarkets.
Leicester’s Emergency Food partnership is already distributing 16 tonnes of food a month. We could have to find another 8 tonnes in the event of no-deal – yet we have no funds whatsoever to pay for this.
It is a disgrace that the Tories are even contemplating a no-deal Brexit that would make the poorest people in society even poorer.
That is why we must focus all our efforts on getting the Tories out and electing a Labour government to make the changes our country desperately needs.
You can watch two clips from the debate below.
