Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Drew Hendry MP "Poverty robs children of their childhood."

Drew Hendry spoke in the House of Commons yesterday. Gurn readers will remember that in December of last year Dr Adrian Baker revealed that 24% of Nairn children live in poverty so despite the outward appearance of affluence there are many people in Nairn who are having a hard time. Here's some of what our Westminster representative had to say:

"I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) on securing such a vital debate. My constituency is perhaps not the first to come to mind when thinking of areas where poverty strikes, but our enduring challenge is the low-wage economy. Unemployment is low in comparison with many other areas, but low wages are the biggest threat to children growing up there. Indeed, low wages, coupled with the increased cost of living, have certainly played a part in 210,000 children in Scotland living in relative poverty, many of whom come from families in which at least one parent is working. That should quite simply be considered an outrage.

We often hear the UK Government talk of making work pay, yet policy decisions achieve quite the opposite. In my constituency, that means one in five children growing up in poverty, with the figure as high as one in three in some parts. Changes to the tax credit regime will, without question, further worsen the living conditions of over 7,000 children in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, as up to £1,000 a year is taken out of family budgets. "

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So new figures show 24% of children in Nairn are in virtual poverty,how the hell are we going to take in immigrants?

Anonymous said...

@Anon 5:26

The agreed number of Syrian refugees (that is maybe what you mean by immigrants?) is 20,000 into the UK over 5 years. That equates to less than 0.5 refugees per town in the UK so nowhere will get a swarm

Out of interest how do refugees equate to child poverty, the latter exists already