Weekly Update – Friday 26^th February 2021

The latest data shows that Covid-19 cases continued to fall across Edmonton over the last week. In Lower Edmonton South. cases were down by 50% week on week with the infection rate now below the national average. The number of cases in Ponders End South were also below the national average and were down by 25% on the previous week. Taken as a whole, the number of reported cases in Enfield dropped by 27%. It’s clear lockdown is working and the impact of the vaccination programme is perhaps starting to be felt among those over 80.

Although the rate at which we are vaccinating people has now levelled off, the vaccination programme continues to produce good results, with almost 2 million people in London having had at least one vaccination dose.  Despite all of that good news, a huge effort is still required to protect the NHS and save lives. If all restrictions were lifted tomorrow, as some Tory MPs are calling for, experts say that we would experience a third wave worse than the second and the NHS would be quickly overwhelmed. That is why we need to take a cautious approach which is guided by the science. This is still a lockdown and we should all only be leaving our homes when absolutely necessary.

For more information and help about what support you can get you may find Enfield Council’s Covid-19 Response page useful.

Solidarity to the London bus drivers who went on strike this week

This week thousands of London bus drivers went on strike after their employer RATP attempted to use the pandemic as a smokescreen for cutting their pay. Bus drivers, especially in London, have faced a huge risk over the last year and have been hit with substantially higher death rates from COVID-19 as a result. They have worked to ferry other key workers like nurses to work and in doing so have played an essential role in our fight against the Coronavirus.

It is therefore even more disgraceful that RATP are attempting to cut the wages of workers in real terms using the pandemic as an excuse. Bus drivers deserve better, as do all key workers. This necessary strike action will hopefully bring RATP to the table and convince them that it isn’t appropriate to use the pandemic as an opportunity to increase their profits at the expense of their workers. Solidarity to all drivers who were out on strike this week.

Homelessness Stats

New statistics have been released which show both the shocking increase in rough sleeping under this Government’s watch and the extent to which that increase is a political choice. Nationally estimates suggest that before the pandemic the number of people sleeping rough had more than doubled under this Government. In London the situation is even worse, with rough sleeping having increased by 187% before the pandemic.

As the first wave of the pandemic hit last March, the Government decided to give Local Authorities the resources, they needed to end rough sleeping. As a result, rough sleeping was almost completely ended in some arears as councils housed those in need. Unfortunately, the Government has since reversed its decision to end rough sleeping and thousands have been forced back onto the streets. Despite that decision, rough sleeping in London has still decreased by 60% since the pandemic started.

Rough sleeping is only the tip of the homelessness iceberg, with millions living in ‘temporary accommodation’, ‘sofa-surfing’ or housing which is unfit for human habitation, but these statistics are a stark reminder that the increase in homelessness under this Government was always a political choice.

The Government is prolonging the civil war in Yemen.

Like many people, I remain deeply concerned about the fact that the UK continues to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia and I have put several written parliamentary questions to the Foreign Secretary on this issue over the last week. We need answers urgently. In the last year alone, the Government has approved over £1.4 billion of arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The amount that the UK has made from arms sales to Saudi Arabia is 5 times the amount we have given to Yemen in Aid.

Despite claiming that our development goals in Yemen are to ‘prevent death, starvation and destitution’, we continue to help Saudi Arabia cause death, starvation and destitution in Yemen by bombing civilians. It is a disgrace that the UK is helping to prolong the civil war in Yemen. The Government now needs to follow the example of President Biden and suspend weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and their coalition partners as a matter of urgency.

——————————-

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