My latest monthly e-newsletter has just gone out to thousands of homes across Hornsey & Wood Green.  You can read a copy below or online, with all the pictures, here.  If you’d like to receive my e-newsletters, and you don’t already, you can sign up here.

Welcome to my September e-newsletter

NHS workers desperately queueing for petrol, gaps on supermarket shelves, hospital waiting lists at record levels and families hit with a triple whammy of tax rises, soaring food & energy prices and Universal Credit cuts.

It’s a world away from the “sunlit uplands” that Boris Johnson and his Vote Leave chums promised when they led us out of the EU.  Of course a global pandemic and this Conservative Government’s repeated incompetence have their part to play in the crisis we face.  But to deny Brexit is a contributory factor is to fly in the face of reality.

I only wish our repeated warnings weren’t coming true because those with the least are paying the price for Boris Johnson’s failures. Watch my speech in Parliament during the second reading of the Health & Social Care Bill where I spoke out against the Universal Credit cuts and tax rises that will cause such hardship for thousands of families in Hornsey & Wood Green.

As we go into a difficult winter, the Government needs to get a grip and fix this mess because our community and our country deserve better.  

Keir Starmer set out a powerful alternative at Labour Party Conference this week.  A vision for a fairer, greener, more secure future for our country.  One that tackles the mental health crisis we face and gives all children, wherever they grow up, the opportunity and skills they need to succeed.  Covid has shone the brightest light on the unequal, unfair economy the Conservatives built.  Change is desperately needed.

Here are some of the other things I’ve been doing this month.  If you know anyone who would like to receive these updates, please share this link.

In Parliament:

Violence against women and girls
I attended and spoke at the moving vigil outside Wood Green Library following the tragic death of school teacher Sabina Nessa.  Enough is enough.  As the sentencing of Sarah Everard’s killer takes place, too many women are still suffering and dying because there is an epidemic of gender-based violence and misogyny and with record low convictions rates for perpetrators of sexual violence this Government is failing in its core duty to keep women safe.   I want to see the Government cast party politics aside on this life and death issue and work with us to implement Labour’s Green Paper on ending violence against women and girls.  We must remove the legal barriers and tackle the delays that are denying victims justice and provide decent, well-funded women’s services.  

Haringey’s schools some of the worst hit by pupil premium change
After two years of disrupted education, our children need a funded recovery plan that includes not just academic support for those who’ve fallen behind but access to extra-curricular activities, social development and crucial mental health support.  Instead the Government’s own adviser has branded the Tory recovery plans “feeble” and now we learn that their changes to the way pupil premium is calculated will see Haringey’s schools lose £691,110.  Schools in the poorest areas are being hardest hit as yet again this Government levels down.  I put a question to the Education Minister in Parliament on these shocking figures.  Sadly, his response was to parrot the same old lines we’ve heard before. Our schools, and our children, deserve better.  A Labour Government would tax private schools to help all children get the opportunities they deserve.

A cleaner, greener future
I’m delighted that at Labour’s annual conference Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves recognised the scale and the urgency of the climate emergency and set out a £28 billion a year investment in climate measures that would quadruple the Government’s current spending.  Every year we avoid action we move closer to disaster, and we increase the costs for future generations.  In the run up to COP26, we also have to recognise that the climate crisis doesn’t have borders and we must work with international partners. In Parliament this month I highlighted the impact the recent cuts to the international aid budget have had by undermining the UK’s leadership in advance of hosting COP26 in Glasgow.

Inequality rises whilst low income workers hammered
Whilst The Sunday Times’ rich list reports 23 new billionaires and Jeff Bezos heads off into space, low income workers and our small businesses are being hammered.  The Tory national insurance rise, which I voted against in Parliament this month, doesn’t just make care workers and nurses pay more, it clobbers struggling small businesses who’re trying to get back on their feet after the pandemic.  Labour would scrap the current unfair business rates system and shift the tax burden away from our high streets and onto the internet giants that have seen their profits soar.       

End stockpiling: vaccinate the world
The gulf between the successful vaccination programmes in rich countries and the situation across Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean is only growing.  It’s unconscionable that we’re now in the situation where 100 million vaccines are due to expire, yet with proper co-ordination, 70% of the world’s population could be vaccinated by May 2022 just through the vaccines already on shelves or in production.  Here’s my latest column for the Ham & High on the urgent need to end stockpiling and vaccinate the world.

Free Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe
Last week marked 2000 days of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe being held in Iran on false charges.  It’s a heartbreaking milestone we all hoped she’d never meet.  I stand in solidarity with Nazanin, her husband Richard & daughter Gabriella, and joined over 175 Parliamentarians in calling on Boris Johnson to end this cruel game.

In the community: