Weekly Round-Up
This week’s Budget announcement from the Chancellor was incredibly disappointing for so many reasons. Where we needed to see support for businesses, investment in jobs and high streets, and support for hard-working, struggling families, we instead saw delayed support, a threat of tax rises, and a real terms pay cut. This is especially hard to accept for the key workers who have worked so hard during this crisis for no more thanks from this Government than a weekly clap. It’s simply not good enough. Now is the time to recognise the sacrifices that so many have made during this pandemic. We need to invest in education and jobs. We do not want to see viable businesses fail due to the pandemic, people out of work, where they could be driving the recovery and rebuilding their communities. This Budget is just more Tory austerity that punishes those in insecure work, and which simply continues the inequality that we’ve seen for too many years.
There was also no support for those affected by the Cladding Scandal. I met with Mike Amesbury MP, the Shadow Minister for Housing and Planning, this week to discuss the issues related to New River House. I am continuing to work with residents of Pinnacle House and Powell House, which at 12 and 9 storeys respectively do not qualify for the Government’s support. It is leaseholders who are having to pay for the Government’s errors and failures to fix the mistakes of the past. I will continue bringing this matter up with ministers and working on a cross-party basis with external stakeholders until it is resolved.
I was pleased to join a virtual briefing session with other MPs to hear from the Minister for Vaccine Deployment on the vaccination programme. While we are incredibly heartened to hear the success of the programme overall, I am still greatly concerned that the vaccination rates in the east of the constituency continue to be low. I raised this with the Minister who promised to look into the matter. We need to ensure that accurate and scientific information is being provided to all and disinformation combatted as well as removing other barriers such as access to vaccine in order to ensure that uptake of the vaccine is high across all areas to give us all the greatest possible protection against this terrible virus.
This week I pressed ministers on their dithering and the lack of PPE and testing provision to our Nurseries. Covid cases in nurseries have nearly doubled since the first week of January to the highest level so far seen during this pandemic. Having spoken to a number of nursery workers, I know many nursery workers and childminders have been understandably worried about continuing to look after all children in lockdown, without a proper explanation of why this is safe and without a clear plan to ensure that providers can access proper mass testing and the personal protective equipment they need. The Government have done so little to reassure them and continue to simply repeat that the current evidence shows that pre-school children under the age of five are less susceptible to Covid and unlikely to have a driving role in transmission. While they may be less susceptible, anecdotal evidence is still showing us that there needs to be more testing and PPE available to early years providers.
I was pleased to be able to tackle the Government this week on the appalling situation of water companies discharging sewage into our waterways during a question session with the Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs. The River Lea in Enfield is a favourite spot for many, especially for the schools and clubs taking part in water sports. And yet its one of the most polluted waterways in the UK – Thames Water discharged 1,100 hours’ worth of sewage into the river in 2019. The Government must do more to tackle this appalling problem.
My telephone surgery sessions are continuing, and if you would like to book an appointment, please do contact my office to arrange this. Although my office is closed to the public in line with Government guidelines, my team and I are working hard from home so please do get in touch on feryal.clark.mp@parliament.uk if there is anything we can help you with. Remember –stay safe, save lives – maintain social distancing and keep washing your hands!