Lambeth’s children and young people deserve the best start in life.
Despite a decade of Conservative cuts and the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, Labour has worked hard to support our children and young people. We have:
- Supported our fantastic schools – we’ve invested more than £6 million in improving school facilities, with 95% of Lambeth schools rated Outstanding or Good by Ofsted.
- Been named London’s best borough for reducing food poverty – funding free school meals when the Tories refused, providing food and fun programmes for more than 6,000 children during the school holidays.
- Invested in opportunities – by delivering more than 4,000 new apprenticeships.
But there is much more to do. Labour will continue to support our children throughout their young lives, from their first steps, through school and into the workplace, as they develop into adults.
We shouldn’t downplay the challenges that lie ahead, but Labour is committed to meet those challenges head on. Rising poverty caused by the policies of successive Conservative-led governments has had a profound impact on children in Lambeth, with over one-third now growing up in poverty.
We will continue to campaign against government policies that have increased poverty and work to end child poverty by getting more parents and carers into good London Living Wage jobs, increase the take up of Healthy Start vouchers, expand the number of children who receive free school meals, and run a campaign to increase the take up of free nursery places. We will fight to end period poverty for young women and girls in our schools by providing free sanitary products to all girls attending Lambeth schools.
Under the Conservatives, Lambeth schools have suffered from budget cuts and their disastrous handling of Covid-19. We will fight for fairer funding for Lambeth schools and against Conservative plans to cut investment in our children’s future.
To tackle inequalities in our schools, we’ll build on our successful programmes – Raising the Game and Somos – to improve educational achievement for children from Black Caribbean, Black African and Portuguese-speaking backgrounds. We’ll expand the programmes to more schools and for other disadvantaged communities such as our Spanish-speaking and Latinx communities, reducing the exclusion rate in Lambeth to zero over the course of the next four years.
We will invest in the services and community groups that support Lambeth’s children and young people by increasing funding for early intervention services to £1 million, providing grants to youth centres and organisations and working with Lambeth Youth Council so that young people can shape the services that support them.
Supporting children and young people to thrive means giving them the opportunities to shape their lives and their futures. We’ll make sure that every neighbourhood has good quality sports facilities that are free to use for local children and young people.
We’ll put the voices, needs, priorities and rights of children and young people at the heart of everything we do, by becoming a fully accredited UNICEF Child Friendly community, including their voice in the planning process so that new public spaces in Lambeth are safer and have more play spaces.
We want to expand opportunities for all in Lambeth’s amazing cultural organisations, providing free creative workspace for young people, expanding our work to connect schools with our world class cultural sector and securing over £10 million of public, private, and charitable investment to create new theatres, festivals, and music facilities.
Providing these opportunities means giving young people in Lambeth the chance to take advantage of the opportunities of the jobs of the future across London. We’ll start ‘Lambeth’s Got Talent’, showcasing local talent, promoting careers in industries of the future, like life sciences and low carbon.
Over the next four years, we’ll ensure that over 2,500 apprenticeship opportunities are created in Lambeth, including 300 directly by the council, and support 1,000 residents to achieve their first level two qualification and gain better paid work. We’ll make sure every Lambeth Care Leaver is given work experience with the borough’s best employers, so that blank CVs are no longer a barrier to young people getting the chances they deserve.
Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in Westminster have presided over a cost-of-living crisis and rising poverty, a poorly planned national tutoring programme, and a multitude of last minute, disruptive U-turns for children, their parents, carers, and teaching staff during the Covid-19 pandemic
Labour will hold this failing government to account, be on the side of our children and young people, and make Lambeth the best place to grow up.