DECENT LIVING INCOMES
A decent living income is the foundation to health, wellbeing and security. But too many people in Ealing are denied this.
6.5% of people in Ealing are currently unemployed, many are reliant on precarious and low paid employment and even more faced with the often crippling effects of in-work poverty.
We know that this is going to worsen as the Government continues to trap people in a low-growth, high tax cycle – hitting working people with tax rise after tax rise and doing little about rising costs of food and fuel.
We also know that there will be a long road to economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the Government’s cost of living crisis will have widespread effects on families across Ealing.
If we’re re-elected in May, we will continue to campaign against the Government’s decisions and offer all the resources and support that we can to those most affected, but we will go even further to try and ensure that residents thrive, not just survive.
We will also provide targeted support to those with the greatest barriers to employment, ensuring that we help as many people as possible access routes into good jobs.
That’s why our pledges are totally focused on helping as many people as possible access good, local jobs with decent living incomes, and on helping our high streets and local businesses thrive. We want to create an inclusive, sustainable economy in Ealing and return jobs back to the borough for local people.
WE PLEDGE TO
- Secure 10,000 new jobs in our borough, ensuring that every resident in Ealing has the opportunity to access a well-paid job, local to them, in a growing economy that keeps more of our money local.
- Enable more small and medium sized business to start up in our Borough by securing more affordable workspace across our seven towns, launch a Creative Enterprise Zone for Acton, an Innovation District for Greenford, and launch Southall Manor House as a centre for business incubation.
- Establish new community hubs, located within our seven towns, supporting residents to access council services at a one-stop place that can support those most impacted by the Tory cost of living crisis with wraparound support.
- Deliver our Plan for Good Jobs, achieve “Good Business Charter” accreditation; increase the number of accredited “Good Businesses”, Living Wage Employers in Ealing to 200 and work to achieve our status as a Living Wage Place, and tackle the need for local people to have to rely on in-work benefits through increasing pay and deliver at least 12,000 new qualifications and training programme graduations for people looking to upskill.
- Secure 2,000 new diverse apprenticeships, supporting more alternative routes into good, well-paid work for our residents, including using our apprenticeship levy to support small and medium sized good employers, broker £200k of spending on top quality in work training, and set high standards to ensure no employer uses apprenticeships to bypass decent pay to exploit workers.
- Support Ealing’s High Streets Taskforce and invest £1m as seed funding to help it coordinate enhancements to our high streets and local parades to change for the better, strengthen their revival in the wake of the pandemic, extending our “Love Ealing, Love Local” approach to growing local business, local culture, enabling our seven towns to have everything they need for residents within a 20-minute walk.
- Get tough on counterfeiters, fraudsters, and bad businesses by stepping up our enforcement of those who break the rules and take advantage of consumers, and campaign to keep the money that is raised each year from fines and prosecutions to support our town centres.
- Support 2,000 residents with the toughest barriers to employment like disability, young people with special educational needs, and recovery from long term health challenges get good quality work and regain their independence, investing £1m to train and support those excluded from the jobs market through no fault of their own.
- Campaign to end holiday hunger and get the Government to extend support for children on free school meals, getting the same financial support we secured for them during the pandemic all year round in future.
“No one should ever have to worry about putting food on the table, or keeping a roof over their head. Everyone deserves a decent living income that helps them thrive, not just survive in a city as full of potential as London." Cllr Bassam Mahfouz - Cabinet Member for Decent Living Incomes