Sarah Church, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate, commented:
Responding to a TUC report showing that the number of children growing up in poverty in working households in the South-West has increased by nearly 36,000, Labour candidate for South Swindon, Sarah Church, said:
Work by The Children’s Society shows that over a quarter of the 23,968 children living in South Swindon constituency alone, live in poverty. When people are in work yet still struggling to heat their homes and feed their families, that shows you that the system needs to change urgently.
Poverty and ill health go hand in hand. Depending where you live in Swindon can alter your life expectancy by a decade- this type of inequality has to stop. We need real change here and we need it now.”
Labour will end zero hours contracts, increase the real living wage to at least £10 per hour and make tackling child poverty the priority it should be. Labour will bring back Sure Start centres, including in Swindon which is the only town to have closed every single centre. Sure Start has been shown to greatly improve the prospects for long term health and education of the children and parents who use them.
