Important Constituency Office Announcement

We are relocating our constituency office in Oldham.

Many of you will know that for the past few years we’ve been located on the top floor of the GMB building on Union Street, but from tomorrow we’ll be based at Chadderton Town Hall.

When the lease at Union Street came up for renewal we decided to reassess our needs and decided we needed a constituency office that was more accessible once we begin meeting people again. I’m delighted that we have managed to lease vacant space at Chadderton Town Hall, which allows for full disabled access with a lift, free visitor parking and is on a main bus route – something we lacked at Union Street. We have the added benefit that we increase the use of an important public building and keeps the rent we pay in the public sector rather than paying a private landlord elsewhere in the town.

Importantly the location is central to most parts of the constituency too.

From tomorrow (Thursday 1st April) our new postal address will be:

Office of Jim McMahon MP

Chadderton Town Hall

Middleton Road

Chadderton

Oldham

OL9 6PP

There will be a post redirect in place for the foreseeable future to ensure any correspondence sent to Union Street reaches us at our new address. I would like to thank the GMB for supporting me as a new MP setting up a new office and for accommodating me and my team over the years. My office supports thousands of constituents each year and whilst my staff are still working from home for the time-being we will continue to support residents remotely during the lockdown.

Oldham West and Royton MP Jim McMahon has hit out at the government after a report by the Public Accounts Committee described the “the unimaginable cost of Test & Trace failed to deliver central promise of averting a second and third lockdown”.

Jim McMahon MP said, “Just imagine what our local public health team in Oldham could’ve done if they’d have been properly resourced, the outstanding work that teams in Oldham have been doing going door-to-door and engaging with our community could have been scaled up massively.”

“But instead because of this Conservative Government’s incompetence, a reliance on consultants costing thousands of pounds per day and public contracts going to friends of the Conservative Party billions of pounds in taxpayer cash has been wasted.”

“This obsession with outsourcing must come to an end sooner rather than later, and contract tracing should be ran by our local public health teams as Labour have been calling for months now. Councils were promised ‘whatever it takes’ at the start of the pandemic, it didn’t take long before the Government rolled back on that, but we’d be in a lot better state if the money funnelled to management consultants through Test and Trace was going to our local councils instead. ”

New analysis by Labour reveals that Chancellor Rishi Sunak will hit all of our NHS heroes with a real terms pay cut this year, as well as other key workers who have kept the country going throughout the pandemic.

This includes at least 9,3000key workers in Oldham West and Royton– the nurses, teachers, police officers and Armed Forces personnel on the front line of the battle against Covid-19.

On Thursday, the Government revealed that they intend to cut the pay of all NHS staff relative to inflation this year.

This comes after the Chancellor announced a ‘pay freeze’ for all other public sector workers earning above £24,000 in 2021-22. Those earning less than £24,000 were promised “a fixed increase of £250”.

Taking into account inflation over the next fiscal year, that means every non-NHS public sector worker earning over £18,000 will also get a real terms pay cut.

In Oldham West and Royton, this means 1,183teachers will see their pay cut, as well as 17,000 police officers and over 90% of the 1,840 Armed Forces personnel based in the North West.

On top of the pay freeze, the Budget also confirmed a one-billion-pound council tax bombshell and a cut to Universal Credit in six months that will hit those who can least afford it.

Labour has condemned this triple hammer blow to people’s pockets as totally irresponsible when the economy is so fragile and is calling on the government to scrap its plans to hit family finances.

Making people worried about making ends meet will pull spending out of local high streets and small businesses, damaging consumer confidence at the very moment the Government should be building it up.

Jim McMahon MP said:

“Last week’s budget has confirmed the what many of us already knew, that this Conservative Government have the wrong priorities. Frontline key-workers have literally risked their lives keeping our country going throughout the pandemic and now the Chancellor is effectively rewarding them with a pay-cut.”

“Not only is it morally wrong it makes no economic sense, families having less money to spend means local business will suffer and our wider economy will take longer to recover.”

“And just this morning the NHS boss Simon Stevens confirmed that our wonderful NHS workers were in line for a pay-rise more than double what the government are now offering.”

“It’s wrong, and it shows that this Government’s priorities are out of touch with working people across Chadderton, Oldham and Royton. The Government have to rethink this and cancel plans to cut pay for nurses, police officers and teachers.”

Late last week I took part in a roundtable event on smart motorways & I am so grateful to Claire, Niaz, Saima and Sally for meeting me to talk about the devastation they have faced and their campaigns and I would urge the Transport Secretary to meet them all too.

Grant Shapps promised he would return to the Commons ‘soon’ to report on the progress of his safety review of smart motorways. That was nearly six weeks ago and every day of inaction is gambling with people’s lives.

We need to hear what progress has been made on the recommended safety measures as a matter of urgency. In the meantime, the Government must do what Labour has asked and reinstate the hard shoulder, before yet another family is left grieving.

I’ll be writing to the Transport Secretary and the Chair of the Transport Select Committee shortly to ensure that Claire, Niaz, Saima and Sally’ voices are heard.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/bring-back-hard-shoulders-campaign-23620793?fbclid=IwAR2p8L4y8SXXBFMmPtpeh91OHVilG4NbEC5IXqIu85qKgGco9GgL1p6Y2Cc

Today’s budget was an opportunity for the Government to tackle the inequality which fuelled both the Covid-19 crisis and its economic aftermath. Instead, the Chancellor has delivered a budget which manifestly fails to deliver a fairer economy or clear roadmap to recovery.

Where was the focus on supporting new jobs? People in Chadderton, Oldham and Royton needed to know that the government would be relentless in its focus to get people back into work. But there was nothing designed to tackle unemployment as it reaches 10% here in Oldham West & Royton.

The budget showed that the Conservatives want to go back to the same insecure economy and unequal country that people in towns like ours have put up with for far too long. There was no mention of schools or teachers, crime, our NHS or social care. But there was room for a stamp duty bung to second homeowners whilst working people are struggling to make ends meet. The Chancellor’s priorities are way out of touch with working people in this country.

Today’s budget was an opportunity for the Government to tackle the inequality which fuelled both the Covid-19 crisis and its economic aftermath. Instead, the Chancellor has delivered a budget which manifestly fails to deliver a fairer economy or clear roadmap to recovery.

Where was the focus on supporting new jobs? People in Chadderton, Oldham and Royton needed to know that the government would be relentless in its focus to get people back into work. But there was nothing designed to tackle unemployment as it reaches 10% here in Oldham West & Royton.

The budget showed that the Conservatives want to go back to the same insecure economy and unequal country that people in towns like ours have put up with for far too long. There was no mention of schools or teachers, crime, our NHS or social care. But there was room for a stamp duty bung to second homeowners whilst working people are struggling to make ends meet. The Chancellor’s priorities are way out of touch with working people in this country.”

I’m pleased to see that the hospital has recognised that practices the CQC saw last year were unacceptable. Patient safety and infection control during a pandemic is absolutely vital.

The Northern Care Alliance has told me they’ve already made a number of changes in the aftermath of the visit, and I’ll continue to liaise with them to make sure that everyone who works at Royal Oldham Hospital and all the patients requiring urgent treatment are kept as safe as possible.

The demanding nature of the second wave of Covid-19 and years of underfunding of our NHS means that our frontline heroes are understandably under huge amounts pressure, but we cannot compromise patient safety.

The only way to realise improvement is to develop a culture of openness, transparency and continuous improvement. That takes time and investment, but it is essential to serve the people of our town.

This #HeartUnions week, I want to say thank you to all trade unionists working hard to keep people safe in the workplace during the pandemic, fighting for better pay and better terms & conditions at work.

The trade union movement was born to give people power in the workplace, in our economy and in our society. And over the course of the last year I’ve seen first hand just how much our unions care about their members.

I’ve worked with Usdaw Union to try and protect warehouse and distribution workers from unsafe practices, Unite the union and GMB Union to try and prevent the use of awful fire and rehire tactics in numerous workplaces, and The Communications Union to try and stop compulsory redundancies at BT.

Trade unions show the power of coming together and organising collectively, that when we come together there’s very little we can’t achieve. Find the right trade union for you here: tuc.org.uk/joinaunion