Labour Leadership candidate, Ed Miliband, recently wrote to the leading businesses in the country urging support for a Living Wage.

To coincide with this national push, Oswestry-based boutique PR agency, The Jools Payne Partnership, is encouraging like-minded small business owners to come forward in support of the campaign.

Agency Director, Jools Payne, said: "We're writing to local businesses in our home town of Oswestry from today to urge them to call for an end to poverty pay. The Minimum Wage was a great New Labour achievement but I believe businesses in the area and across Shropshire should be doing more than the legal minimum wage.

"Small businesses like ours are operating against the most difficult economic backdrop in decades. I constantly hear the mantra 'Cash is King'. Sadly, I think many small business owners interpret this as 'pay people as little as you can get away with'. Morally, that's just not right.

"Paying a Living Wage is good not only for the employee but for the employer, too. It rightfully values the individual and this in turn encourages better productivity and results. Paying a Living Wage will also benefit the local economy in Shropshire by stimulating local demand. We are a low wage economy here, below the national average, and if Shropshire is to thrive under the proposed LEP that needs to change.

"Big businesses like KPMG and Barclays are already moving toward a Living Wage, I hope businesses in Shropshire - whatever their size - will join them."