Europe

Labour party slams UK gov’t over housing crisis

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Britain’s Labour party has criticized the government of Prime Minister David Cameron for failing to deal with the housing crisis that has left thousands of Britons homeless.

The opposition party warned on Wednesday that rising housing costs and low pay have made it more and more difficult for people to stay in their family home.

New figures show the number of families with children that are illegally housed in temporary accommodations has increased by 400 percent since 2010.

Shadow Housing Minister Emma Reynolds said that the government’s failure to build affordable homes has made things worse.

“These figures show the scale of David Cameron’s failure to tackle the housing shortage which is central to the cost-of-living crisis,” she said.

“It is a tragedy that tens of thousands of families will be spending their Christmas in emergency accommodation but it is also costing the taxpayer more, with local authorities set to spend billions on emergency accommodation over this parliament because of the government’s failure,” Reynolds said.

Statistics on homelessness from the Department for Communities and Local Government shows that more than 60,000 families, including 87,420 children, will be spending Christmas in temporary emergency shelters.

A December 20 report said that one out of every five Britons is living below the poverty line in the country.

“As 2014 draws to a close, there are 13 million people in poverty, including 27 percent of the 2.5 million children in the UK,” Child Poverty Action Group said in the report.

The Trussell Trust charity also released a report showing one million people in the country are now relying on food banks run by charities.

Charities warned that many families have so little that they are unable to afford basics such as food and housing.

The UK’s coalition government adopted austerity measures in order to tackle the country’s mounting debt and sluggish growth, but the policies have sparked public protests in recent years. Critics say the measures have resulted in a mismatch between stagnating wages and surging living costs.

The British government has promised to eradicate child poverty by 2020. Experts, however, believe that it is “inconceivable” for the government to achieve the stated target. They say an estimated 3.5 million British children will still be living in poverty by 2020.

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