Guest Column: Government is just letting more and more children live in poverty

I have written in this column recently about the effects of police cuts, benefit cuts, legal aid cuts and schools cuts, to name just a few.

Now another report, detailing the increase in child poverty, has been released by the TUC.

It estimates that 3.1 million children with working parents will be below the official breadline in 2018.

The East Midlands is the region that is set to see the biggest increase in child poverty among working families, with a rise of 76 per cent.

The TUC puts this rise down to factors including the public sector pay cap and in-work benefit cuts.

Being in work should pay but Tory austerity and a faltering economy means that just isn’t the case.

Hard working parents are struggling to afford to feed and clothe themselves and their children and I feel this is down to decisions made by the government.

You may remember the awful case of the death of Sutton woman Claire Martin in Italy in 2012.

Claire died from multiple stab wounds to the neck, yet a suicide verdict was given by the Italian authorities.

Her parents Pat and Ray have been fighting to find out the exact circumstances of their daughter’s death and get the case re-opened ever since.

It is because of my knowledge of, and involvement in, this case that I have signed a letter to the Foreign Office from the newly-established All Party Parliamentary on Deaths Abroad and Consular Services.

The letter calls on the Foreign Office to improve the service given to families affected by a death abroad because the improvements put forward in a 2015 report are still not being implemented.

In such distressing times, families need support from the British Government to help find out what happened to their loved one.

I hope this new action will bring about the improvements in consular assistance that are needed.