{"id":43754,"date":"2025-12-30T04:07:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T04:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/west-yorkshire-mayor-says-too-many-families-are-working-poor\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T04:07:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T04:07:20","slug":"west-yorkshire-mayor-says-too-many-families-are-working-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/west-yorkshire-mayor-says-too-many-families-are-working-poor\/","title":{"rendered":"West Yorkshire mayor says too many families are ‘working poor’"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Gemma Dillon,<\/span>West Yorkshire political reporter<\/span>and<\/span><\/p>\n

Rima Ahmed,<\/span>BBC Radio Leeds<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Tracy Brabin says the emphasis on mayors in the Budget is “revolutionary”<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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West Yorkshire’s mayor says scrapping the two-child benefit cap will help families that have jobs but still struggle to make ends meet.<\/p>\n

Labour’s Tracy Brabin has been answering questions on Message the Mayor on BBC Radio Leeds.<\/p>\n

She has also been talking about when work will resume on the White Rose station in Leeds, her recent trip to Brazil and taxing tourists who visit Yorkshire. <\/p>\n

Read our takeaways from the interview below or listen to the full interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Scrapping the benefit cap was really important<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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“For various circumstances, you might have three children, but just because you have three means you are poorer as a family – it is absolutely shaming.<\/p>\n

“In some communities in West Yorkshire, 50% of children are living in poverty. How on Earth are they going to take up the opportunities as we grow the economy if their start in life is so difficult?”<\/p>\n

In last week’s Budget, the chancellor scrapped a rule that means parents can only claim Universal Credit or tax credits for their first two children.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Investing in mayors is good for the economy<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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“I think this Budget is actually quite revolutionary. It has empowered mayors.<\/p>\n

“Andy Burnham [Mayor of Greater Manchester] was talking last week about the growth of Greater Manchester being greater than the national average and outstripping London. Who was second? West Yorkshire.”<\/p>\n

Following the Budget, more parts of England will be given “integrated” settlements – meaning all their funding from the government goes into one big pot, and mayors will decide how it is spent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tourist tax is fair<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Brabin was asked about new powers to bring in a modest charge for overnight visitors.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s fair that people pay a tiny amount of money when they come.<\/p>\n

“And then that money will be invested in big events, or infrastructure support like better buses. <\/p>\n

“If you look at York and North Yorkshire, for Mayor David Skaith, it is in the tens of millions of pounds that he could spend on transport – but we have had 73 million visitors to West Yorkshire in the last year.<\/p>\n

“We have some real jewels in the crown in Ilkley, Shipley and Haworth, so a little bit of money will make it better for everyone.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hoping work will restart on the White Rose station next year<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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“I am desperate to sort this out. I know the longer it stays closed the more it is going to cost us.<\/p>\n

“It was an agreement before my time as mayor and, quite frankly, we’d never do this again in the way we are doing it.”<\/p>\n

Work stopped on the White Rose station in Leeds in 2024. It is a project jointly funded by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and private company Munroe K. <\/p>\n

The mayor hopes contractors will be back in 2026 – but she says she cannot promise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rio climate trip was about diplomacy<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Brabin faced criticism on social media for going to a climate summit in Brazil that took place ahead of the COP30 conference.<\/p>\n

“I was invited by [former New York Mayor Michael] Bloomberg with other mayors from across the globe to discuss what mayors can do to tackle the climate emergency.”<\/p>\n

The mayor says it was a “real opportunity” to help create jobs in the climate economy, which she says is worth \u00a38bn to the region.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gemma Dillon,West Yorkshire political reporterand Rima Ahmed,BBC Radio Leeds BBC Tracy Brabin says the emphasis on mayors in the Budget is “revolutionary” West Yorkshire’s mayor says scrapping the two-child benefit cap will help families that have jobs but still struggle to make ends meet. Labour’s Tracy Brabin has been answering questions on Message the Mayor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[259,1315,1956,3050,4713,3963],"class_list":["post-43754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-families","tag-mayor","tag-poor","tag-west","tag-working","tag-yorkshire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43756,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43754\/revisions\/43756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}