My latest e-newsletter has gone out to thousands of homes across Hornsey & Wood Green.  You can read it below or online with all the photos here.

If you’d like to receive it and don’t already, you can sign up here.

Welcome to my December e-newsletter

As we reach the end of a year that has been difficult for so many, I want to wish you the best for the festive season and for the New Year.

Sadly, every day I hear from people who are struggling, and I know some of you will be anxious about your energy bills and food costs during the holidays as the weather gets colder.   My website has lots of useful information about support that’s available  and please do get in touch if there’s anything I can do to assist.

It’s also been a very tough year for our brilliant small businesses.   I was proud to support Small Business Saturday earlier this month and visit some of the many shops, cafes and small businesses that make our community so special.   I was also granted a debate in Parliament on the struggles of our high streets who’ve battled soaring bills, supply chain issues, a pandemic, and now a recession.   Watch my speech here .

I know many of you will be cutting back yourself this Christmas.  But if you are looking for gifts this festive season, please shop locally.  It’s better for the environment, for jobs and keeps more money in Hornsey & Wood Green.  We’re home to so many brilliant businesses – let’s do everything we can to help them thrive.

MP of the Year Award
I was humbled to end the Parliamentary year by receiving the Patchwork Foundation’s overall MP of the Year Award.  The Patchwork Foundation do such important work ensuring under-represented voices of young people, particularly from disadvantaged and minority communities, are heard in Westminster and I’m extremely grateful to everyone who nominated me.  I love representing such a diverse, creative and articulate constituency and I set up my summer school to push open the doors of Westminster to young people of all backgrounds.  I’ll always use my platform to make sure different voices are heard.  In accepting the award, I also paid tribute to my small but exceptional team who have worked so hard this year – I couldn’t do what I do without them.

Defending our postal workers
Problems at Royal Mail didn’t start with strike action.  This is the third year in a row that residents and businesses in Hornsey & Wood Green are being hit by Christmas postal delays, and Royal Mail have failed to meet their quality-of-service commitments for 12 consecutive quarters.  I’ve written to Ofcom to express my concern at the lack of action they are taking in response to these persistent failings.

Postal workers are on the front line doing an incredibly tough job, but as you know, I’ve long raised concerns with Royal Mail bosses, with Ministers and with Ofcom about the way the service is being managed.   Last year Royal Mail paid out over £500 million to shareholders.  This year they’ve announced half-year losses and plans to cut 10,000 jobs.  At PMQs this month, I urged the Prime Minister to defend the Universal Service Offer and launch an inquiry into Royal Mail and how this situation has been allowed to happen.

Postal workers are just some of the key workers out on strike this month and today sees the first ever nationwide nurses strike.  It is a badge of shame that this Government has refused to show leadership and get back round the table to solve this dispute, and instead they are playing games with people’s health.   Nurses have been forced into this action by the Government’s failings – a failure to tackle workforce shortages, a failure to give our nurses the support they need whilst increasing numbers of them are left relying on food banks.   Labour would scrap non-dom status and use the money to bring through a new generation of doctors and nurses.   The PM seems to want to stand back and do nothing.

2022 in numbers
This year my office has received a staggering 15,832 casework emails and opened 2,693 new cases.  Backlog Britain was top of the pile, whether the repeated failings of the Home Office to issue passports or make asylum decisions, or the struggles to get GP or dentist appointments.  More and more people have got in touch about the Government’s failure to act on rental reform with a rise in section 21 evictions and leaseholders and tenants struggling in unsafe homes.  New PM Sunak can’t clear up the mess 12 years of the Tories have caused – we need a General Election.  

I’ve responded to over 12,000 emails on policy issues, with concerns about the cost-of-living and the crisis in our NHS after 12 years of the Tories dominating my inbox.   Hundreds of you wrote in opposition to new laws criminalising protest and the Government’s shameful treatment of refugees with the passing of the Nationality and Borders Bill.  I am very proud to represent such a compassionate, engaged, diverse constituency and will always speak up in defence of refugees and the contribution they make to our community.

I’ve asked 461 Parliamentary Questions and you can view some of the most recent ones here.  I’ve also spoken 129 times in Parliamentary debates on subjects ranging from social care reform to soaring private rents, the sewage polluting our rivers to the lack of support for families struggling with the cost of living.

As Labour’s Shadow Foreign Minister covering Asia and the Pacific, I’ve spoken from the front bench on subjects from the appalling human rights situation in Xinjiang, the attack on Hong Kong protestors outside the Chinese Consulate in Manchester, our support for the people of Sri Lanka, the violent repression in Myanmar, and the treatment of garment workers in Bangladesh and Cambodia. I’ve also taken part in 6 Urgent Questions from the treatment of BBC journalists in Beijing to the volcanic eruption in Tonga, expressing Labour’s concern on these urgent issues and calling on the Government to deal appropriately with these crises. 

It’s been a busy year and I don’t expect 2023 to get any quieter!  As always, if you want to know what I’m doing on issues that concern you, do get in touch.

Government PPE Scandal
Labour forced a Parliamentary vote this month to finally secure the release of documents on the PPE Scandal, following the revelations that Conservative Baroness Mone was just one of those walking away with tens of millions of taxpayer cash at a time of national crisis.  It is a disgrace that it has taken Labour action to force the Government to come clean with the British public.   I am extremely concerned that the Government’s high priority lane for procurement during the pandemic, otherwise known as the “VIP” lane appears to have resulted in contracts being awarded to companies without due diligence.  It is all about transparency and urgent questions need to be answered about what happened.

Standing up for refugees
Devastating news from the channel yesterday and my heart goes out to those who died and their families.    Seeking asylum is a basic human right, not a crime. No-one should risk their lives on these dangerous crossings, and tough action must be taken against the criminal gangs who prey on the vulnerable.   But as long as this Government fails to provide safe routes, including for children, we will see people making these desperate journeys. The Government must stop chasing headlines and instead the UK must step up and provide safe and legal routes for refugees.  The latest Government announcement to tackle the backlog of asylum claims is their ninth  policy announcement in 3 years, but each time the problems have got worse as they’ve failed to tackle criminal gangs, failed to provide safe alternatives and backlogs have continued to soar.  It’s devastating for people caught up in the system and unable to get on with their lives, and it’s wasting hundreds of millions of pounds.

Childcare IS infrastructure
I am delighted that Stella Creasy’s amendment to the Levelling Up Bill to class childcare as “national infrastructure” was successful.   Childcare IS infrastructure and with the soaring costs of childcare locking many people, particularly women, out of work for years on end, I hope this will be an important step forward in increasing affordable, accessible childcare provision.  However, for it to work it must be accompanied by appropriate funding.

Save our Pools
Swimming pools and leisure centres are particularly vulnerable to rising energy costs. As Chair of the All-Party Swimming Group, I’ve been supporting the  Swim England campaign calling on the Government to give them the support they need as part of the Energy Bill Relief Scheme review. This week we presented the petition, signed by over 40,000 people up and down the country.  I hope the Government will listen.

New Coalmine in Cumbria
The Government’s decision to grant permission for a new coalmine is the wrong one, and a massive step backwards for our climate goals. The Tories are pushing out of date fossil fuels in an age of renewables and sending the wrong message to the rest of the world. We need green, sustainable jobs in Cumbria and across the country in clean steel, hydrogen, wind, nuclear, home insulation and other zero-carbon technologies. This isn’t it.

Despite the climate crisis that is raging across the world, ever-growing rise in energy bills and the immediate need for UK energy security and independence, the Tories are still bickering over wind power. At a time when we should be investing in a large and diverse energy portfolio, they are banning solar farms from most of England’s farmland. The fact is – the Tories have run out of ideas and need to move aside.