Kate Osamor MP – Weekly Update – Friday 6 May 2022

It’s time for a humane approach to refugees

I’m shocked and appalled by this Government’s failure to help Ukrainian refugees. New data shows that only 15% of Ukrainians who have applied under the family sponsorship route have made it to Britain. That means more than 59,000 people who have had their visas approved have not yet arrived in the UK.

The PM has since admitted that the Government could ‘perhaps’ have acted faster. Yet from the very start of this refugee crisis the Government was warned that they were not doing enough, fast enough. The mistakes made during the Afghanistan refugee crisis have been repeated and amplified by the sheer number of Ukrainians fleeing into neighbouring countries.

My office frequently contacts the Home Office on behalf of Ukrainian constituents who are seeking to bring their family to the UK. The response we receive shows a department that is overwhelmed, understaffed, and falling apart.

Long waiting times on the phone and a lack of clarity when speaking to staff shows a response that is being hampered by the same bureaucratic hurdles the government deliberately put in place to create the hostile environment.

But the solution is not just increasing staffing numbers. The difference between the UK’s response to this crisis and our European neighbours is that most European countries have waived the need for visas while the UK is only letting in a tiny proportion of Ukrainians who already have family here. If we want to do the right thing and take our fare share of refugees, then we must waive visa requirements for all refugees who are fleeing war.

We need an emergency budget to tackle the cost-of-living crisis

Next week a new session of Parliament will be opened and with it the Government will have the opportunity to set out its priorities in the Queen’s Speech. I know what the priorities of my constituents are and what those of the Government should be.

Every day I’m contacted by people living in Edmonton who don’t know how they are going to pay their bills. The cost-of-living crisis is hitting everybody hard and yet the Government spent the last session of Parliament attacking our democracy, demonizing refugees and cutting taxes for the rich.

The Government must get its act together for the sake of the country. Instead of advising people living in fuel poverty to spend all day on a bus we need an emergency budget that tackles this crisis head on. We need a windfall tax on oil and gas producers to cut energy bills. We need more support for struggling businesses. We need to scrap the National Insurance hike. We need to insulate homes and we need to increase benefits in line with inflation. These should be the Government’s priorities in the coming Parliament session, and they will be the priorities that I will be calling for the Government to support on behalf of everybody in Edmonton.

Junior doctors deserve fair pay

The 2% pay ‘uplift’ agreed pre-pandemic represents yet another real term pay cut for junior doctors in England. That is unacceptable and is bad news for the NHS and the Patients who use it.

Junior doctors put their lives on the line, like all NHS staff to help combat the pandemic, yet the Government has chosen to reward them by cutting their pay even while they spend money cutting taxes for the wealthiest.

We can afford to increase junior doctor’s pay in real terms and that is exactly what we should do. At a time when doctors are leaving the profession in record numbers, a cut to pay will only increase those numbers and it will be patients who suffer in the end.

I’ve called for a 15% pay raise for junior doctors in response to the inflation crisis and will continue to urge the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to go back to the BMA Junior Doctors Committee in good faith with an offer that does not amount to real terms pay cut.

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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