Welsh Conservatives today highlighted the growing poverty gap built up under Labour in Wales.
A nationwide ad van campaign – timed to coincide with the launch of Labour’s Welsh manifesto – exposes Gordon Brown’s failure to close the gap between rich and poor.
They say, under Labour in Wales:
- 96,000 children are living in severe poverty
- One in three children are living in poverty
- Wales has the highest child poverty rate of any UK nation
- Wales is the poorest part of the United Kingdom
- Wales has the second lowest average weekly household disposable income of the devolved countries and English regions
- The Assembly Government itself has admitted that progress towards halving child poverty by 2010 “has stalled”
Launching the ad campaign, which will tour Wales over the next few days, Welsh Conservative Assembly leader Nick Bourne AM said:
“Gordon Brown’s Labour Party came to power 13 years ago promising to tackle inequality and promote fairness. They have clearly failed.
“Gordon Brown said he’d fight poverty, but inequality is at highest level since records began.
“Labour promised to halve child poverty in Wales by this year, but we now have the highest child poverty rate of any UK nation.
“Labour said they’d close the wealth gap between Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom, but that gap is getting wider.
“It’s unbelievable that Labour think they can claim to be the party of aspiration when their failure to tackle the causes of poverty has let down so many people.
“We need a change from Labour’s failed one-dimensional approach to tackling poverty and inequality, both at Westminster and in the Assembly.
“Conservatives will tackle the root causes of poverty and inequality – and not just the symptoms – through radical policies to address entrenched educational failure, family breakdown and worklessness.”
