According to the Financial Times the Government’s own analysis of cutting Universal Credit next month confirms what many of us had been saying, that poverty, foodbank usage and homelessness will rise as a result.
So the Government knows that making the biggest overnight cut to social security would be wrong for families and wrong for our economy. The Government is well aware of how careless this cut would be, it would lead to families struggling to put food on the table, an increase in foodbank usage, poverty levels rising, and a number of people made homeless as a result.
And yet they are determined to press ahead and remove what has become a vital lifeline for many families whilst we’re still dealing with so much economic uncertainty as furlough ends soon too. This just isn’t good enough for the 16,000 families across Chadderton, Oldham and Royton who have come to rely on the uplift.
We know that the £20 uplift is more often than not spent in local shops and on our high-streets, so this cut would mean that over £17m would be taken out of our local economy at a time when it needs every penny to survive.
Labour will continue to stand up for the low-income families who will be devastated as a result of this cut and will do everything we can to try and cancel the cut.
This plan is nothing more than a sticking plaster, before the pandemic there was a crisis in social care, with staff on poverty wages, insecure contracts and thousands of vacancies in the sector.
To say that the Government have had to do this because of the pandemic is incoherent and unfair, the plans announced by the Prime Minister yesterday do not mean that the quality-of-care people receive will improve or that the crisis in the sector will be dealt with meaningfully.
As Keir said to the Prime Minister yesterday, a badly paid social care worker will pay more tax for the care they’re providing without a pay rise or greater job security, and landlords who rent out dozens of houses and flats won’t pay a penny more under these plans but those working full-time jobs to afford the rent will.
We need comprehensive reform of our social care system, rooted in fairness. One that deals with the burden that social care costs have put on council tax, meaning that our lowest earners pay more of their income to council tax proportionately than the highest earners do.
Fiddling around the edges of the system and increasing the tax burden on working people is not the answer to our social care crisis. Thousands of families in Oldham West and Royton who are struggling with the dilemma of ensuring their loved ones get the care they need deserve nothing a better and fairer system.
The Maggie’s Oldham centre is a place filled with such compassion and warmth for all those in Oldham affected by a cancer diagnosis, despite being located at The Royal Oldham Hospital as soon as you enter it feels distinctly non-clinical and welcoming.
And that’s down to the environment created by the fantastic staff and volunteers, like Trish, Laura and Lynne who I spoke to yesterday.
It was a pleasure to be invited for a tour, and have a lengthy discussion about how the Centre can carry on supporting Oldhamers that have been impacted by a cancer diagnosis.
In the four years that they’ve been open they’ve supported almost 40,000 people already and they want to support even more over the next four years and beyond.
If you’re not already aware of the work they do or you’re interested in helping the charity out head over to their website: maggies.org/Oldham
It was a real privilege to speak to young people at National Citizenship Service supported by Oldham Athletic Community Trust, at the Primrose Bank Community Centre. It’s so important democracy is engaging.
I talked the young people through my journey in politics and how they can’t afford to sit back and assume that someone else will take the lead and speak up for the problems that their generation is encountering.
It’s my belief that anyone in that room at the Primrose Community Centre today could be a future Prime Minister, with hard work and a passion for serving your community you can go a long way.
And as always with these types of events there were fantastic and engaging questions from the young people involved.
The Manchester Evening News has reported that efforts are being made to establish a community patrol in parts of the constituency.
Nationally a number of similar groups have already been established, and it proves a source of tension for local councils and police forces in reconciling how to ensure the safety of volunteers and the wider public, and ensuring basic standards are met. I do not doubt that residents looking to organise community patrols are likely be well meaning, as will many in the wider community who want to offer support, but without clear regulation and basic standards such as training, governance and compliance being in place it remains my view that they should not be encouraged or facilitated by the police or local council. My concerns reflect those set out in July by Cllr Shah, Leader of the Council; “People’s concerns about the levels of crime in their area are very real and something all members hear about from their local residents very regularly.
“We would, however, question whether street patrols of this nature are the best or most appropriate solution to the issues residents raise.
“As a result, we don’t currently offer any support or funding to these types of groups and have no plans to do so.’
There has always been a role for community involvement to reduce crime. In most cases this will not be patrols but formalised Neighbourhood Watch schemes which are supported by the police, local council and often housing associations.
As a constituency MP I am regularly in dialogue with Greater Manchester Police and Oldham Council on community safety and crime issues. My postbag regularly receives concerns from residents about rising crime and the lack of resources to allow the police to respond.
I have written previously on the damage done by a decade of Conservative cuts. Our town has lost local police stations, both its County Court and Magistrates Court have closed, and not a single custody cell is operational in the Borough. All of this undermines public confidence. Though more officers are being recruited they will not replace all we have lost, nor will we see the support staffing replaced to the same level.
Even in this challenging context we must see a return to local and active neighbourhood policing, as set out by the Mayor and new Chief Constable, and for that to be supported by reporting lines which are fit for purpose. Residents have the right to expect active investigations into crimes which are reported. That also means that the iOps IT system must be sorted out once and for all, until it is victims will not get the justice they deserve and frontline officers will have a much harder job to do.
All this is essential to maintain and rebuild public trust and confidence.
I had a really interesting visit to Mellor Buses in Rochdale this morning hearing about how the Government’s zero emission bus funding is excluding companies like Mellor as they deal with buses at the smaller end of the spectrum – under 23 passengers – and holding back British manufacturing as a result.
We’re 18 months on from the Government promising four-thousand zero emission buses and they’re still massively falling short of their promises. This is just the latest in a long line of examples of the government talking a good game, yet failing to deliver.
Even if all four-thousand of these buses are delivered it still leaves twenty-eight-thousand buses polluting our roads. While we’re still waiting for the promised zero emission buses, cuts to bus services and rising ticket costs will push more people into using more polluting forms of transport.
The decade ahead is crucial. We must grow modern industries such as manufacturing electric vehicles to build a long-term economy that provides good jobs and is fit for the future.
Another successful community litter pick done yesterday, even with the foul weather we managed to get through the Shaw Street area of Royton and amass a fair few bags!
We’ve been out now a fair few times in Royton, the councillors are really putting in the hard work to make the town clean and well cared for, as always it was a pleasure to be out with them.
Team GB have as always been excellent during the Tokyo Olympic Games, and Matt Walls’ heroics on the cycling track have made all of us in Oldham incredibly proud.
Together with Debbie Abrahams and Angela Rayner we’ve written to Oldham Council to ask that Matt be given the Freedom of the Borough – the highest honour Oldham can bestow – upon his return from Tokyo in recognition of his outstanding achievements.
Jim McMahon OBE MP 