Kate Osamor MP – Weekly Update – Friday 2 September 2022

My thoughts are with Pakistan

The devastating floods across Pakistan should shock the world. An area the size of the UK is under water. 33,000,000 people have been impacted, 287,000 homes have been destroyed and thousands are dead. There are 1.2 million people of Pakistani origin in the UK and I know that there is a vibrant Pakistani community in Edmonton. My thoughts are with them and I understand that many will be worried sick about their loved ones.

It’s deeply concerning that while a third of Pakistan is under water, our Foreign Secretary is nowhere to be seen. The Foreign Office has announced only £1.5 million in financial assistance in response to the disaster, which is barely 1% of the total required to meet urgent humanitarian needs. There are so many people across the country with close ties to family and friends back in Pakistan, that the UK must step up and play its part to meet the scale of this challenge. We cannot sit back while a catastrophe unfolds.

We should also remember at this moment that the Government cut UK aid for environmental protection programmes in Pakistan by 75% and that just two months ago the Business Secretary cut the international climate finance budget by £100 million. Not only does that have a devastating impact on those directly impacted by environmental disasters such as this, but it is also morally wrong for us to abandon our friends abroad. What we see now in Pakistan, in China’s Heatwave and in Europe’s drought are the decade-long warning from scientists coming true before our eyes. The climate crisis is here and we are living through it. If states across the world do not act now then this will just be the beginning of a far greater catastrophe for the world.

Edmonton residents hardest hit in London by energy bills

I’m deeply concerned about the cost-of-living crisis facing my constituents. Every week I speak to constituents who are being impacted by rising energy prices and inflation. Now new research by Friends of the Earth has ranked most of Edmonton as an ‘energy crisis hotspot’ meaning that we suffer from a combination of rising bills and poor insulation. The result is that in Edmonton we have to spend more heating our homes than in other places with better insulation.

Listening to constituents I’m in no doubt about how serious this situation is. Not just for households but for small businesses that face having to close unless they get Government support. That is why the Labour party are pushing the Government to announce a freeze on the energy cap. But we must go further than that. Last winter there were thousands of ‘excess deaths’ as a result of homes that went unheated due to affordability issues. Unless the Government takes radical action now, this winter thousands more will die, the economy will crash and families will fall into debt.

We need a mass programme of insulation across the country, we must bring prices down by investing in renewable energy and it’s time to take back control by bringing the energy sector back into public ownership. Anything less will result in a disaster for families in Edmonton and across the country. 

TFL funding deal

After weeks of negotiation, the Government has finally agreed to a funding settlement with TFL until 2024. This agreement was necessary after TFL followed the Government’s instructions during the pandemic and closed down services. Unlike almost every other major transport network, TFL gets most of its funding from fares and not central government. So, when TFL brought in pandemic restrictions, it had its biggest loss in income for a generation.

The Government took this as an opportunity to score political points and punish Londoners for following the rules during the pandemic. In return for money to fill the funding gap the Government has asked that TFL makes drastic cuts, including to disability access and bus routes. As Mayor, Sadiq Khan has spent months fighting the Government on these cuts and has now secured a funding deal, that sadly still has some strings attached.

Although large-scale cuts to services have been avoided, the Government is still forcing TFL to cut some bus routes and make other cuts. That is wrong and I will still oppose any unfair cuts, whether agreed to or not. The Government is sabotaging TFL because they think it will make it more likely that a Conservative will win the next Mayoral race. I think Londoners will see through that cynical and immoral abuse of power.

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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