Children need adults to advocate on their behalf. Remember - they don’t vote, and sadly often feature low on the list of MP’s postbag issues. Yet children have borne austerity’s brunt.
“If we truly value local community services then we have to be prepared to pay for them”
With less than two weeks left before we go to the polls (unless you have already voted by post), we need to shout from the roof-tops that we need to fund local government and local services properly.
If we truly value our local community services then we have to be prepared to pay for them. Fully funding councils is the only way they will be able to make a difference to people’s lives, such as caring for older and disabled people, protecting children, building homes, fixing roads, looking after our green spaces and collecting the bins.
The money councils have is running out fast and there is huge uncertainty about how they will pay for them into the next decade and beyond.
All parties will need to look beyond headline pledges around more funding for the NHS, police and schools – important though these are.
And on this, I am old fashioned. You do this by being honest with the public and telling them they need to pay more for quality public services.
So we need to challenge all the political parties in this election to come clear on how we are going to fund the services we need.