The Boundary Commission for England has released its updated proposals for new constituency boundaries across the country. In our area the headline recommendation is that the boundaries for both Oldham West & Royton and Oldham East & Saddleworth will stay the same- a recommendation both myself and Debbie Abrahams MP had argued in favour of.

In previous rounds of proposals there had been suggestions of swapping the Alexandra and St Mary’s wards which are currently in Oldham East & Saddleworth with the Royton North & South wards currently in Oldham West & Royton. I wrote to the Commission arguing against this as having no electoral value and not recognising the natural links which shape our area. This is particularly the case given the importance of Broadway & Manchester Road in connecting the constituency through Chadderton and on to Royton. I am pleased that the Commission has taken these proposals on board.

However, while I am pleased the Commission has retained the same boundaries, I am disappointed they have rejected my suggestion of a change of name to the constituency in order to represent Chadderton. I, alongside many people in Chadderton, including the Chadderton Historical Society, proposed that a more appropriate name would be Oldham West, Chadderton & Royton. As Chadderton makes up around 31% of the population of the constituency, I feel this is a missed opportunity for the constituency name to recognise its second largest town. I know many will share this view so if you support the inclusion of Chadderton in the constituency name please do get in touch with my office or the Boundary Commission to show support for the change. This will be a proposal I will continue to advocate for as the Committee makes its final deliberations before producing the final report in July 2023.

Just 7 weeks ago I was writing at the beginning of Liz Truss’ time as Prime Minister detailing how she was not on the side of working people and that her economic claims did not add up. Fast forward to today and those claims have been proven right and we somehow find ourselves with Rishi Sunak as the third Tory Prime Minister in a couple of months.

Over the last 12 years we have seen Tory failure after Tory failure and we now find ourselves in the midst of an unprecedented cost of living crisis. As Chancellor Rishi Sunak failed to grow the economy, failed to get a grip on inflation, and failed to help families with the Tory cost of living crisis. Appointed him as an unelected Prime Minister is not the answer.

He claims his government will have “integrity, professionalism and accountability” but we cannot forget that Rishi Sunak was also found to have broken the law and lied to the British public for attending parties in Downing Street at the height of lockdown. This does not sound like integrity, professionalism and accountability to me.

During the summer’s leadership election (which he lost) Rishi Sunak bragged about taking funding away from areas like Chadderton, Oldham & Royton that need it most in favour of giving more money to wealthy rural areas. This is proof that he and his government will not prioritise working people. Instead, we will have more of the same where the already wealthy are put first and working people are left to pay the price.

We saw from the Conservatives’ disastrous mini budget the consequences of prioritising tax cuts for the rich over economic security. Rishi Sunak and his family have previously avoided paying their fair share of tax in this country while simultaneously raising taxes for working people. There is clearly no mandate for this.

The country needs a fresh start and the public deserve a say on what that fresh start looks like. We need a general election now in order to bring in a Labour government that will provide strong leadership and put working people first.

Liz Truss’ departure as Prime Minister is the latest shambles in the line of 12 years of Tory failure. They have created a cost-of-living crisis and crashed the economy in Downing Street with working people facing record high levels of taxation, sky high bills for food, fuel and energy and £500 extra on their mortgage bills.

People in Chadderton, Oldham & Royton are paying the price for Tory chaos. They deserve far better than this. The answer to this crisis is not another Tory Prime Minister appointed without the consent of the British people- there is no mandate for this.

We even have speculation that the disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson is going to throw his hat into the ring- this is the same man who just months ago was declared unfit for office by his own party.  

What we need for Chadderton, Oldham & Royton and the country as a whole is a fresh start. People deserve a say on the direction the country is headed at this critical moment- Labour have a plan to sort out this Tory mess and to do so in a way that prioritises growing the economy and puts forward a new deal for working people. The only way we can rebuild towards a fairer, greener future is with a general election- now.

On 5th September 2022, Liz Truss was announced as the next leader of the Conservative Party and she will become Prime Minister on 6th September 2022 after visiting with HM The Queen in Balmoral.

In her speech to Conservative Party members accepting the leadership, Ms Truss praised the work of outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson. She was also backed by a large number of Boris Johnson’s closest allies in her leadership bid suggesting a certain amount of continuity with the outgoing Prime Minister’s regime.

After months of dithering, the Conservative Party finally threw an out of touch Prime Minister out of office. That Prime Minister broke the law, flip flopped from one position to another, and had no answer to the looming cost of living crisis. And who have they replaced her with? Liz Truss, who was Boris Johnson’s foreign secretary and stood by him every step of the way.

The Government will try to tell you that this a big change for them and that things will get better. There’s very little evidence that that is the case. Where Liz Truss has consistently stuck to a position throughout the contest, we have seen alarming evidence that things are going to get worse for Oldhamers. In the analysis that I’m releasing today, I’ve shown that in 5 particular areas – workers rights, the economy, cost of living, housing, and crime and anti-social behaviour- there are tangible downsides for Oldhamers to her policies.

You can see what each party cares about by comparing Labour and Conservative policies. Labour’s policy to freeze energy bills at the existing cap of £1971 would save people around £1000 a year and bring down inflation. Meanwhile Liz Truss is promising a tax cut that gives top earners a benefit of more than 250 times the amount that most working people will receive. Oldhamers need a government that is genuinely on their side and prioritises what they need in the upcoming cost of living crisis and only a Labour Government will do that.

Five ways in which Oldham will be worse off under a Liz Truss Government

After months of squabbling between each other the Tories have finally made their mind up and have chosen Liz Truss as the new Prime Minister. While there is no longer any excuse to ignore all the urgent issues we have at hand in the midst of the worst cost of living crisis for decades Prime Minister Truss is bad news for the people of Oldham and here’s why:

1. Liz Truss is not on the side of working people. As the cost-of-living crisis spirals for working people all over the country now more than ever do we need a Prime Minister willing and able to stand up for people. However, Truss has shown that she would rather attack working people saying that they lack “graft, skill & application.” The people of Oldham have demonstrated these qualities for generations and continue to do so to this day. This is typical of a Conservative Party who have consistently shown a lack of respect and support for working people. Instead, they are on the side of big businesses like the energy firms who have been counting record profits at a time when millions across the country are worrying about paying their bills.

She has also threatened a ‘bonfire on worker’s rights’ at a time when they are so crucial. Instead of providing extra support for workers to help them in a time of crisis she is looking at plans to allow bosses to force workers into extra hours and fewer breaks.

2. The Tories’ economic plans do not add up. We have now had 12 years of Tory government and all we have to show for it is low wages, high prices and a Tory cost of living crisis. During the leadership campaign Liz Truss had more to say on cutting tax for huge corporations than she did on supporting working people. This shows that we are in for more of the same failed Tory economics. After years of serving in Tory cabinets Liz Truss has failed to discover any new answers to the problems, we as a country face and yet again the Tory party have resorted to offering unrealistic and unfunded promises. Labour has come forward with new plans and ideas and always makes sure all policy is fully funded- Tory economics is anything but. The people of Oldham and places just like it around the country need more than just a change of who has the reins at Number 10, what they really need is a change of government that is on their side to bring new ideas that will really make an impact to their lives.

3. She has no clear plan for how to tackle the cost-of-living crisis. Throughout the leadership contest both candidates showed an unwillingness to confront and tackle the cost-of-living crisis at a time when it is getting worse by the day. At the beginning of the campaign she suggested she was not planning to step in to now insisting there are plans to step in (albeit with no details on what sort of support this will mean in reality) it is clear that we should expect another Prime Minister defined by U-turns and indecisiveness. Friends of the Earth research has shown that Oldham West & Royton has an unusually high number of energy crisis hotspots showing just how hard this crisis is hitting in the local area. The Labour Party were calling for a windfall tax on the energy companies for months before the government finally decided to back the policy and this is no way to go about tackling an urgent and critical national crisis.  

4. Liz Truss is opposed to building much needed new housing. Oldham is a borough desperately in need of housing. The average house in Oldham is around £183,000 and have increased by 11.3% over the last year, vastly outstripping average wages which are the second lowest in the borough. In the last 12 years of Tory government we have seen a housebuilding drop to unprecedently low levels and this has inevitably led to a generational housing crisis. Demand for housing is consistently outstripping supply across Oldham with some Oldhamers spending years on waiting lists and far too many people suffering from homelessness and rough sleeping. In quarter one of 2022, there are 88 fewer properties available and 668 new applications for homelessness in the month of June alone. It’s clear we need more homes for our residents and yet Liz Truss has planned to scrap housing targets describing them as ‘Stalinist.’ Everyone deserves to have a roof over their heads and building new homes is an essential part to making this a reality as the current shortage means that there is no option other than to prioritise applications based on their need. Once again, this issue is an example of the Tory government failing to put the interests of working people first. Building new homes could have a transformative effect on millions of families across the country. 

5. Liz Truss is on the side of criminals – Oldham has the third highest rate of crime in Greater Manchester. I believe strongly that if someone breaks the law, they should be caught, tried and convicted. However, this has become increasingly difficult in the 12 years that the Conservatives have been in power. I’ve been arguing since I was elected that the County Court and Magistrates Court should not be closed yet the Tory Government took the decision to close both courts during Liz Truss’s time as Justice Secretary. The Criminal Bar Association recently stated that the backlog for cases in the Crown Court could reach 70,000 cases. The longer a trial is postponed, the more chance there is of prosecution witnesses giving up hope or forgetting their evidence and the harder it is to secure a conviction. This means there is more chance that guilty people will get away scot-free. Even when offenders are found guilty, we don’t have a single custody suite in the entire borough of 225,000 people. Liz Truss is uniquely badly placed to do anything about this crisis. When she was Justice Secretary, she took no action to defend judges from accusations that they are enemies of the people. Most recently, the former Conservative Lord Chancellor, Lord McKay said that Ms Truss had ‘no idea’ about legal aid and pointed to the fallout between the new Prime Minister and the legal profession during her time as Justice Secretary. This does not give high hopes to those who need justice to be done.

12 years of Tory government has already been far too long for working people across the country. Liz Truss becoming Prime Minister signals that the era of dithering, indecisiveness and U-turns is set to continue. Her past record in government and during the campaign shows that she is not on the side of working people and only serves to highlight that what we really need to tackle this unprecedented cost-of-living crisis is a Labour government that would decisively be on your side.

It was good to meet Dr Owen Williams, Chief Executive at the Northern Care Alliance last week, with Debbie Abrahams to discuss the Royal Oldham Hospital, the recent IT failure, changing the culture at the trust, and health inequalities in our town.

I think I speak on behalf of everyone in Chadderton, Oldham and Royton when I say how grateful we all are for the hard work all the staff at the Royal Oldham Hospital puts in, often under extremely difficult circumstances.

An important message on the front page of today’s The Oldham Times to the two Tory candidates.

It comes as research from the IPPR North shows that in the three years since this Tory government announced its levelling up agenda for towns like Oldham in the North, public spending has risen the most in London, with the smallest rises coming in the North of England.

We are sick of broken promises, the North is asking for its fair share, no more, no less.