Senior Labour figures came together at Labour conference to show their support for Save the Children’s campaigns on the refugee crisis and children’s literacy.
Former Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt, said he was a keen supporter of the charity’s ‘Read On. Get On’ initiative, which aims to get every child in the UK reading well by age 11.
“Literacy is the key to learning. You start those young people early, you get them to love literature and then the other subjects begin to open up,” he said.
Mr Hunt identified poverty as a significant barrier to education and achievement and set out how this affects pupils day to day.
Being without access to a good meal, a quiet space to do homework or a school uniform could all inhibit a child’s ability to learn, he said.
“I am horrified,” Mr Hunt added, “that this government seems intent on getting rid of free school meals.”
The MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central also advocated concentrating on strengthening the family unit in order to improve outcomes for children.
“If we are interested in challenging inequality and disadvantage in the early years it is not just about spending money. It is about supporting family structures.
“We have to tackle poverty and we have to support strong families and strong communities.”
His colleague Dan Jarvis also addressed the audience, focusing his speech on the plight of child refugees.
The former Shadow Foreign Office Minister paid tribute to the work Save the Children had done in putting pressure on the Government to restart its rescue mission in the Mediterranean.
He warned that in making the journey from Syria and Yemen there were many children being separated from their parents and arriving in Europe alone.
Questioning the Government’s current stance, Mr Jarvis asked why a child that has made it to Europe should be viewed as less deserving than a child in a Syrian refugee camp.
“I think we should and must be helping them both,” he said.
The aspirations that we have for UK children, he added, should extend across the world.
Save the Children's is calling for the UK to accept 3000 unaccompanied children already in Europe, in addition to meeting our duties to those suffering in the region.
“Our values don’t stop at the waters edge and that is why I want to achieve those same ambitions, those same opportunities for kids right around the world. I think it speaks about our basic decency as a society,” said Mr Jarvis.
Expressing his optimism about the new Sustainable Development Goals, which have just been agreed by the United Nations, he urged the international community to “make it our mission to reach for those goals together, to build a better world for children.”
Journalist and Save the Children Ambassador, Natasha Kaplinsky, echoed the calls for action and described her role with the charity as “one of the most important things I do.”
She praised Save the Children’s ambition, saying she had been immediately struck by the “power and awe of the organisation, where absolutely everything is possible.”
Turning to the refugee crisis, Ms Kaplinsky said she had been shocked and devastated by the pictures that had emerged.
Calling for a compassionate response, Save the Children’s Director of Campaigns
Kirsty McNeill insisted that it was a “push factor not a pull factor” that was forcing families to embark on the journey to Europe.
She concluded: “Parents send their children because what is behind them is more terrifying than what’s in front of them. The journey, desperate and dangerous as it may be, is preferable to what they are leaving behind.
“So, as long as children have cause to flee we will have cause to fight. As long as children are coming to Europe for safety, Save the Children will be there doing whatever it takes.”