I WAS very pleased to see Kevin Morris of Astley Bridge supporting the Campaign for the Living Wage.

As The Bolton News has pointed out, the Living Wage is an hourly rate set on an annual basis by the Living Wage Foundation and is calculated according to the cost of living in the UK.

The current UK Living Wage is £7.85 an hour, much higher than the government's National Minimum Wage of £6.70.

When Labour introduced the National Minimum Wage in the late 1990s it proved to be one of the most popular policies of any government in a generation. The sad fact is that the Minimum Wage has not kept up with rising living costs. It is shocking to think that here in Bolton a staggering 29% of workers are earning less than a living wage. I am guessing that local Conservative Chris Green MP has not spent too much time trying to bring up a family on low pay if he thinks that "strengthening the economy" will somehow mean that "employers have to start paying better wages". Breadline Bolton cannot afford to sit back and hope that Conservative trickle down economics will somehow pay the bills and put bread on the table. It just shows how out of touch the Tories really are.

I was pleased to see that a new campaign has been set up across Greater Manchester to tackle low pay. I encourage readers to fully support it.

http://gmlivingwage.org/

Joan Pritchard-Jones

Bolton