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'Tidal wave' of cuts 'has left children to suffer in hardship'

Corbyn demands government plug council budget gaps on Norwich trip

A TIDAL wave of cuts to council services and the lack of vital NHS facilities has left children to suffer in hardship and put their health and safety at risk, Labour will say today.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is demanding extra funding in Monday’s autumn Budget for local authorities so that they can provide support and safeguarding services for young people.

And shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth is calling for higher spending on the NHS after a record 18,647 children’s operations were cancelled last year because of equipment failure, staffing shortages and critical care bed unavailability.

On a visit to Norwich today, Mr Corbyn will say that the problem of councils having to shut down children’s centres and services can escalate into a “national emergency.”

He will visit the city after Norfolk County Council recommended shutting 46 out of 53 centres when their contracts end in September 2019.

Labour has highlighted estimates by the Local Government Association showing that local authorities face a £3 billion funding black hole for children’s services by 2025.

More than 120 charities, unions and campaign organisations – including the National Children’s Bureau, the National Education Union and the Child Poverty Action Group – called on the  government to give councils extra cash.

The government said £200bn had been made available to councils up to 2020 and core schools funding is increasing to £43.5bn by the same year, including £6bn for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

Mr Corbyn will say: “Tory austerity is putting children’s lives in danger.

“Cutting the services that protect and support children and young people is a tragic false economy that will blight the lives of millions of children and young people.

“These cuts risk more children ending up in care, excluded from school or falling prey to gang violence. This is a national emergency.

“If austerity is over, as Theresa May has claimed, the Chancellor must use the Budget next week to provide the funds urgently needed to keep children safe.”

Mr Ashworth highlighted the plight that Tory cuts have had on the NHS. In total, since the Tories came into power, children’s operations have been cancelled at least 117,936 times.

Treatments included broken bones, removing rotten teeth, eye surgery, breast cancer and acute tonsillitis.

Mr Ashworth said: “The cancellation of an operation brings tremendous anguish and uncertainty which must be especially unsettling for children and their families.

These cancelled operations risk harming children further in the long term and it’s shameful that cancellations have reached this level.
 
“The fact that thousands of children’s operations have had to be cancelled on this scale reveals yet again an NHS pushed to the brink by the Tories.

“The Chancellor must act in the Budget on Monday by giving the NHS the funding it needs now and reversing the devastating cuts to public health services that are setting our children’s health back.”

 

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