Weekly Update – Friday 1 October 2021

Commissioner Dick must resign 

It was welcome news this week that the police officer guilty of kidnapping and murdering Sarah Everard was given a whole life sentence. It means he will die in prison having no chance of early release. The details that emerged of the case at sentencing and the subsequent response from the Met Police and in particular the Met Commissioner do however raise serious concerns that urgently need to be addressed. We now know that the perpetrator was part of a group of at least five, still serving, police officers that he shared racist, misogynistic, and homophobic messages with on WhatsApp. We know that the perpetrator was nicknamed ‘the rapist’ by his fellow police officers, and we know that he used his position as a police officer to kidnap Sarah, handcuffing her for ‘breaking lockdown rules’ before forcing her into his car.

It is also now apparent that the Met police had many opportunities to act against the perpetrator and prevent him from going on to murder Sarah. That alone should have resulted in the sacking or resignation of the Met Commissioner, Cressida Dick. Since the murder occurred however, the Commissioner appears to have gone out of her way to show she is no longer suitable for the role and will be unable to take on the task of protecting women in the capital. From the decision to send police officers in who assaulted and arrested women mourning at the vigil for Sarah Everard, to her incredible defensiveness about the issues the Met now faces, Commissioner Dick has shown she is no longer fit to continue in the role.

London deserves a Met Commissioner who is transparent and hungry to tackle the issues that led to the murder of Sarah Everard. Commissioner Dick has shown she is incapable of being that person. It’s time for her to go.

Fuel Crisis (Labour must offer an alternative)

The government’s fuel crisis continued this week with Boris Johnson and his ministers insisting that it’s a global problem, entirely out of their control and not at all their fault. The problem with that theory is that across Europe people aren’t fighting over fuel at petrol stations like they are in the UK. There are no gaps on the shelves or delayed deliveries and farmers are not having to throw away crops that have gone unpicked. This is a crisis created by this government and even as the severity of our driver shortage began to emerge in the summer, no ministers felt the need to cut their holidays short.

The result is the chaos we are dealing with now and which we are likely to deal with for a while yet. The fuel crisis at petrol stations is just one part of that. Shortages at Christmas will be another. That is unless the Government takes urgent action to improve working conditions for HGV drivers and encourage drivers from Europe to come back to work here. The sad reality is this Government is unlikely to ever let solving a crisis like this get in the way of its ideological opposition to immigration.

UC Cut – 100,000 homeless 

Research by Crisis, published this week, estimates that 100,000 renters in England will be at risk of eviction if the Government goes ahead with their decision to cut Universal Credit. At the start of the pandemic the Government was forced to concede that people on Universal Credit were not being given enough money to survive on. With a huge increase in Universal Credit claimants as the economic ground to a halt, the Government had no choice but to increase Universal Credit by £20 a week to prevent a similar increase in the amount of people needing to go to food banks or becoming homeless.

Lockdown may have ended but the amount of money people need to live on hasn’t changed, yet the Government has insisted on pushing forward with its cruel cut to Universal Credit. The results will be awful, as highlighted by Crisis. As we approach winter, many families will go hungry, be forced to turn off their heating and face homelessness. Not only is this an immoral policy choice for this Government to make, it risks stopping our economic recovery in its tracks. By cutting the income of millions of people by £20 a week the Government will be taking a huge amount of money out of local economies in one go. The consequences won’t just be awful for Universal Credit recipients, but for the local businesses in which they would normally spend that £20. The Government must think again before it’s too late.

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Thank you for taking the time to read my latest update, if you have any issues that you would like to raise directly with me then please do email  edmontonconstituency@parliament.uk. I’m always happy to help whenever possible.

Kind regards,

Kate Osamor  MP