It is a total disgrace that in the 21st century, in one of the richest countries in the world, 40,000 children in our city are now growing up in poverty and 1 in 5 children say they worry about having enough to eat.

Growing up poor makes it harder for you to do well at school, get a good job and lead a healthy life. It harms children’s life chances, and our city and country as a whole.

Tory policies like Universal Credit and their abject failure to tackle the housing crisis have plunged already struggling families into even greater problems. We also know that work alone does not guarantee a route out of poverty, with two thirds of child poverty now in working families. 

I’m proud of the work we are doing in Leicester to help local residents, like Feeding Leicester’s holiday hunger programme which provided over 32,000 free lunches to children over the summer holidays.

But we shouldn’t have to deal with this problem in the first place. That’s why I’m campaigning to scrap Universal Credit, build more affordable and social housing, introduce a genuine living wage and reverse the cuts to vital services like mental health and Children’s Centres.