Kate Osamor MP
Weekly Update – Friday 12 November 2021
Health & Care Bill
The Government has announced that its new Health & Care Bill will be coming back to Parliament on the 22nd and 23rd November. That gives us just over a week to stop the Government handing over the NHS to private companies. If passed, the Bill will lead to even more of the NHS being privatised by the backdoor. If that happens, the corrupt contractors who’ve made billions from the pandemic will have a free hand to pick apart our health service, lowering standards and creating a post-code lottery for care.
But the fight back against this attack on our Health Service has begun. From 5pm on Monday 22nd November there will be a protest against the Bill outside Parliament. Meanwhile, thousands of people have already signed this petition calling for the NHS to be renationalised and the Bill to be scrapped. Nye Bevan, the Labour Party MP and architect of the NHS, is often quoted as saying “the NHS will only be around for as long as there are people prepared to fight for it”. Now is the time to join that fight.
Select Committee Update
My work on the International Development Select Committee continued this week as we held an evidence session with several leaders in the aid sector to explore the fundamental question: what is international aid for, whose purpose does it serve, and is it effective at reducing poverty?
While the UK’s 2002 International Development Act stipulated that our aid spending must be “likely to contribute to a reduction in poverty”, there are many questions and controversies over how best to achieve that aim and whether ‘development projects’ always do that.
In posing a question to Dr Onyekwena, the Executive Director at the Centre for the study of the Economics of Africa, I asked how the UK could ensure that the way in which we trade with developing countries doesn’t harm those economies. Interestingly, Dr Onyekwena pointed to the importance of the UK supporting developing countries with knowledge transfers and investment in the capacity of those economies to trade. In practice this would mean less focus on ‘opening up’ developing economies to western companies and more time spent on direct poverty relief.
For too long the developed world, often in exchange for ‘aid’, has insisted that developing countries open themselves up to international corporations who then exploit the resources of those countries rather than investing in their economy. That needs to change if international aid is to do what it was designed to do and reduce poverty.
It’s time to cancel third world debt
Along with dozens of other MPs this week I signed an open letter to the Foreign Secretary, Lizz Truss MP, urging her to grasp the opportunity that COP26 has presented us with and support efforts to write off the debt for countries in the Global South. For hundreds of years the global south has been subject to exploitation at the hands of wealthy countries, and they are now being forced to confront the climate emergency with both hands tied behind their backs.
Recent analysis from the Jubilee Debt Campaign found that 34 of the world’s poorest countries are spending £21.4bn on debt payments a year, compared with £3.9bn on measures to tackle the climate emergency. Unless that changes the global south will be unable to address the climate emergency. It’s time now for wealthy nations, who are historically responsible for carbon emissions, to prioritise preventing a climate catastrophe above their own economic self-interest. I hope the Government listens to reason and responds to this letter with action.
I voted to end sewage dumping
On Monday this week I voted again to stop water companies routinely dumping sewage in our rivers and seas. We are in a climate and ecology emergency. Wildlife in Britain is on a downward spiral, with 44% of species in decline over the last ten years, while our air and rivers are dirty and unhealthy for people and wildlife.
Yet despite the crisis we face, Ministers have dithered and delayed for months amid the critical COP26 talks. Sadly, the Environment Bill remains unfit for purpose, with the environmental office lacking independence and the power to fine. There also remains no timetable from the Government for ending sewage discharges.
To put it simply, this isn’t a Government that is taking our environment seriously and the Environment Bill sadly reflected that. That’s why I voted for tougher measures. It’s time we take real steps to preserve our planets and protect our environment.
Windrush Lives Matter
Earlier this week I attended a very important meeting with Windrush Lives – a group of Windrush Compensation Scheme claimants who are fighting against the injustice of the Windrush Compensation Scheme. I heard first-hand about the awful impact the so-called ‘compensation’ scheme continues to have on the victims of the Windrush scandal.
The problems with the scheme are well documented and remain unaddressed by the Home Office. The offers of compensations are insultingly small, the scheme is incredibly difficult to navigate, and the process is taking an incredibly long time complete, with many victims having now tragically died before receiving an offer of compensation. Perhaps most importantly, the scheme is run by the Home Office, the perpetrators of the crimes against the Windrush generation. There isn’t even an independent appeals process.
It’s clear that justice for the Windrush victims will never be delivered under a Tory government. But we must continue to fight for justice nonetheless and hope that before it’s too late, the Windrush generation, who has been so badly betrayed, are properly compensated for the trauma they endured.
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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