Taliban Takeover of Afghanistan

I’m sure that we have all been saddened to see the pictures coming out of Afghanistan this week and it was right that Parliament was recalled to discuss this urgent situation. My constituency office has been flooded with emails from constituents seriously worried for the safety of family members who are stuck in Afghanistan, as well as those more broadly concerned about the future of Afghanistan, urging the Government to do all it can to provide humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people.

We must stand with the Afghan people at this difficult time, which is just the latest chapter of hardship that they have endured, following on from the US-led intervention that has resulted in over 100,000 deaths and millions more being displaced over the course of twenty years. The international community must watch the Taliban closely and listen to voices on the ground over the coming weeks and months and condemn any human rights abuses that women, ethnic minorities, the Taliban’s political opponents or others are subject to.

Despite the Government’s rhetoric, their concern for the Afghan people was clearly expressed by the fact that they massively slashed aid to the country earlier this year. There is an ongoing humanitarian crisis, with more than 550,000 Afghans having been internally displaced since the beginning of this year alone. Huge credit must be given to the NGOs and their staff who continue to provide humanitarian assistance on the ground, from whom I have received updates on the situation this week.

Refugees Welcome

The UK Government now needs to focus its efforts on providing whatever assistance it can to the Afghan people, first and foremost providing safe passage out of the country and granting refugee status to those who have worked with British forces and others whose safety may be at risk.

Sadly, the Afghan resettlement scheme that the Government announced this week fails to reach the scale required for the UK to adequately make its contribution, committing to take 5,000 refugees this year and 20,000 over the next few years. Priti Patel’s suggestion this week that ‘we cannot accommodate 20,000 people in one go’ was simply wrong and is a clear expression of the Government’s knee-jerk anti-migration sentiment and lack of humanity. We are one of the richest nations ever to have existed on earth, and the idea that we would be unable to provide refuge to 20,000 refugees this year is simply ridiculous.

Once resettled, the Government must also ensure that refugees are treated with dignity and respect and given good quality accommodation. The story of Mohammed Munib Majeedi, a five-year-old Afghan boy, who sadly died after falling from the window of the Sheffield hotel his family were placed after only having arrived from Afghanistan as refugees a few weeks ago was deeply distressing. It’s even more sad that there are reports that the Home Office had already been told about safety issues with the hotel and I support calls for an immediate investigation into how this tragedy was allowed to happen.

Unemployment in Edmonton

The latest unemployment figures as of July 2021 were released this week and show that the unemployment rate in Edmonton sits at 11.2%. This is more than double the UK rate of 5.4% and despite all the talk of the economy bouncing back this is still way above pre-pandemic levels. Despite all the Government’s talk of ‘levelling up’ the country the reality is that it does not care for areas of London such as Edmonton that would hugely benefit from investment.

With this in mind, it is even more shameful that the Government is set to cut the Universal Credit uplift from October, which has been a vital lifeline for so many, and is estimated to have kept 700,000 people out of poverty during the height of the pandemic. This will cut the income of some of the least well-off families by more than £1,000 a year. The situation has already been dire for the around two million people on legacy benefits who were excluded from this uplift and had their benefits increased by just a miserly 37p despite the strains of the pandemic.

That is why this week I wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Therese Coffey this week to urge for the Universal Credit uplift to be made permanent and for the £20 uplift to be extended to those on legacy benefits. I also asked her to justify why those on legacy benefits were deemed to be less deserving of an uplift than those on Universal Credit, especially considering the former are disproportionately likely to be sick or disabled.

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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