Holmes Calls for an End to Child Poverty

12.00.00am GMT Wed 7th Nov 2007

Paul Holmes MP and Annette Brooke MP want to put an end to child poverty

Paul Holmes MP today as a part of End Child Poverty month joined Save the Children, Shelter and the End Child Poverty coalition on a march on the Treasury to press for the end to child poverty. Paul launched the national campaign in Chesterfield at the Unemployed Workers Centre on October 19th.

"From 1979 -1999 children living in poverty in the UK increased from 15% to 33%. Brown and Blair in 1997 said they would half Child Poverty by 2010 and end it by 2020. In fact in 10 years they have only reduced that figure to 30% and last year actually saw an increase of 100,000 more children in poverty.

"This weeks Queen's Speech promised no improvement.

"Brown's attack on Council Housing has made the situation worse too. Only 300 Council houses were built in the whole of the UK last year and waiting lists in places like Chesterfield and Sheffield have trebled with 130,000 children nationally living in squalid and unsuitable conditions.

"These figures are a shocking indictment of Brown's failure. It is outrageous that one of the wealthiest countries in the world has failed to tackle Child Poverty"