We use cookies to ensure that we can give you the best user experience. By continuing to use our website you are consenting to their use. Find out more.

What language do you need?

Labour's commitment to invest in early years provision is backed by Usdaw

Date: 08 November 2019 Retail trade union Usdaw has welcomed Labour’s promised investment in early years provisions to transform the lives of children and their families.
Successive Tory-led Governments have fundamentally undermined one of Labour’s greatest achievements by slashing funding for Sure Start. Labour will make high-quality early years education and access to Sure Start Plus a right for all families.
 
Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary says: “Sure Start was one of Labour’s greatest achievements in government, bringing help and support for parents into the heart of some of Britain’s most deprived areas. So we are delighted to hear that the next Labour Government will breathe new life into the service after years of deeply damaging Conservative cuts.
 
“Work is the best way out of poverty and for parents that means they need the necessary help and support. Sure Start made a major contribution, something the Tories fail to understand. Positive effects on families and home-learning environments, fewer chaotic home lives, with parent-child relationships improved. Mothers using the centres showed improved mental health and children exhibited greater social skills.
 
“On this, like so many other matters the Conservatives know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. We need the return of a Labour government to improve the life chances of children in the poorest families, continuing the work of the last Labour government.”
 
Labour will unlock the potential of all our children by:
  • Rolling out 30 hours of free childcare a week for all 2-4 year olds to give all our children the best possible start in life, saving families thousands of pounds a year.
  • Opening 1,000 new Sure Start centres.
  • Providing free school meals for all primary school children to end the stigma and ensure no child goes hungry at school.
  • Building a million genuinely affordable homes, including the biggest council housing programme in a generation.
  • Investing in our schools, fully reversing Tory cuts to give every school the funding it needs.
  • Ending the public sector pay cap and introducing a Real Living Wage of at least £10 an hour to boost household income.
  • Ending the benefit freeze, the two child limit and scrapping Universal Credit which is pushing families into poverty.
Notes for editors:
 
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK's fifth biggest and the fastest growing trade union with over 400,000 members. Membership has increased by more than one-third over the last couple of decades. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemicals and other trades.
 
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion

Share this page

Free prize draw

Enter our free prize draw to win a £100 Love2Shop Gift Voucher courtesy of Usdaw Protect.

The official website of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers