Amanda Hack - your Labour Candidate for South Leicestershire

Amanda's election address should be dropping through your letterbox any day now.  Congratulations to the election team - it looks great and the contents are spot on.

If yours hasn't arrived yet, here are some key points:

• We've seen massive cuts to local services - social care, children's services, school support, youth services, all either closed or cut to the bone.  The next tranche of Tory cuts will close libraries and museums.  Labour is committed to a fairer alternative.
• The NHS as we know it cannot survive five more years of Cameron.  Labour will hire 20,000 more nurses and 8000 extra GPs, funded by a clamp down on tax avoidance, a mansion tax on properties worth than £2 million, and a levy on tobacco firms.
• The cost of childcare has risen by 30% under the Tories.  Labour will provide 25 hours free childcare each week for parents with 3 and 4 year-olds.  Labour will work with primary schools to provide childcare for school-age children from 8am to 6pm, and help parents balance work and family life.

Find out more about Amanda and her campaign by visiting the constituency party's website or by following Amanda on Twitter @hack4labour.

Labour Pledges

A future for the many, not the few

The Tories can't build a better future for working people because they stand up only for a privileged few.

 

Under the Tories’ failing plan too many people are treading water, working harder and harder just to stay afloat, and worried that the next generation are finding it harder to get on than the last.

• Working people are an average of £1,600 a year worse off under the Tories
• Family energy bills have been allowed to rise by over £300 since the election.
• The average age of first time buyers has now reached 33.

David Cameron claims this economy is fixed, but their plan has seen a recovery which is benefiting a privileged few far more than most families.

• David Cameron has cut tax for people on over £150,000 a year while raising it for everyone else.
• Hedge funds have been given a tax break worth millions.
• Families with children have been hit hard, with childcare costs up 30%.

And despite promising to protect the NHS, under David Cameron it is going backwards with people struggling to see their GP and waiting lists rising. You can’t trust the Tories with the NHS.

• One in four patients are waiting a week or more for a GP appointment.
• Waiting lists for treatment are at their highest level for six years.
• Thousands of frontline NHS staff have been lost while £3 billion has been wasted on a damaging reorganisation they promised wouldn’t happen.

Labour's Cost of Living Contract

Last week, Labour would have delivered a Queen’s speech to help Britain be better off 

Parliament should be making real progress to address the public’s discontent and chart a new direction for Britain. Labour’s Queen’s Speech would have included: 

 

• A Make Work Pay bill to reward hard work with a higher minimum wage.

 

• A Banking Bill that backs British business with a real British Investment Bank and new regional banks.

 

• A Consumers Bill to freeze energy bills until 2017 and reform the energy market

 

• A Housing Bill with long term reform to increase supply to 200,000 homes by 2020, and measures to end rip-off letting fees and make three year tenancies the norm.

 

• A Communities Bill to give people a say over pay day lenders and betting shops on their high streets.

 

• An Immigration Bill, to stop workers being undercut through enforcement of the minimum wage and banning recruitment agencies that only use overseas labour.

 

• An NHS Bill, to put a stop to its privatisation and improve access to GPs. 

 

To make that happen we need a different government, a Labour Government.

 

Labour will take immediate action to deal with David Cameron’s cost-of-living crisis:

 

• Freeze gas and electricity bills until 2017, as we reform the broken energy market to prevent customers being ripped off.

 

• Get the next generation into work, with expanded apprenticeships and a compulsory jobs guarantee for young people unemployed for a year or more – with a real paid job they’ll have to take or lose benefits.

 

• Introduce a lower 10p starting rate of tax to help make work pay and cut taxes for 24 million working people on middle and lower incomes – funded by a mansion tax on homes worth over £2 million.

 

• End the abuse of zero hour contracts and strengthen the minimum wage.

 

Labour will make big long-term changes so that hardworking people are better off

 

• Get 200,000 homes built a year by 2020, creating up to 230,000 construction jobs.

 

• Make work pay with 25 hours free childcare for three and four year olds with working parents paid for by an increase in the bank levy.

 

• Improve school standards, by guaranteeing that all teachers must be qualified, and transforming vocational education for the 50 per cent of young people who don’t go to university with gold-standard technical qualifications at age 18.

 

• Repeal David Cameron's NHS changes that put private profit before patient care – and we will give patients and the public a say when changes to local services are proposed.

 

Only Labour can make Britain better off, putting hardworking families first with a plan to tackle the cost-of-living crisis and earn our way to higher living standards for all.

Labour guarantees

 

Labour will act to deal with the Coalition's cost-of-living crisis.

 

With your support we will:

• Freeze gas and electricity bills until 2017 and reform the energy market to prevent customers being ripped off again in the future
• Expand free childcare to 25 hours for three- and four-year-olds of working parents
• Get 200,000 homes a year built by 2020
• Get the next generation into work with our compulsory jobs guarantee for young people who have been unemployed for a year or more

Read Glenis Willmott on Europe's role in beating the cost-of-living crisis by clicking here.