Weekly Update – Friday 2^nd April

Race Commission Whitewash

There has been a total of 13 independent reports into the issue of racism in the UK in recent years. Most of these reports found an abundance of evidence demonstrating deeply imbedded structural racism in the UK and provided the Government with actions it could take to begin tackling the issue. In every single case the Government failed to implement these recommendations.

The Prime Minister, who we know from his past career as a journalist held racist views, has shown he likely still holds those views today. It is clear he is unwilling to acknowledge his own issues and the issues the country as a whole has with race. This is clearly why, instead of implementing the reports already commissioned, he decided to commission the so called ‘Race and Ethnic Disparities” report, written by people who’ve made careers from denying racism exists. The report unsurprisingly concludes that there is no issue with racism in the UK. The report itself is an embarrassing mess, littered with contradictions, factual errors and racist assertions about slavery and empire being a positive experience for the black population in this country.

The report is an attempt by the Government to bait us into a culture war which it believes will be good news for the Conservatives politically and it will hinder attempts to combat racism. As I write today in Politics Home – we shouldn’t take the bait. We should ignore this whitewash and continue fighting against racism in whichever form it takes – even when the form is a so-called report into ‘Race and Ethnic Disparities’.

Government shouldn’t scrap telemedical care

This week I wrote to the Minister for Care, Helen Whately MP, urging her to make the changes to Telemedical Care brought in because of the pandemic permanent. I believe strongly in the right of all women to have access to safe, legal abortion care without fear of criminalisation. Back in March 2020 we made a big step forward in that regard when the Government introduce a ‘pills by post’ system to ensure that women could continue accessing abortion care during lockdown.

Although forced on the Government by the pandemic, this is a change that should be made permanent as it reduces the need for women to resort to unsafe and illegal methods of abortion, making them vulnerable to prosecution. I hope the Government will look at the evidence and not reverse such an important step forward.

Carers deserve a pay rise

Carers, both unpaid and paid, have been on the front-line of this pandemic and are incredibly vulnerable, both to the virus itself and its economic impact. Carers are disproportionately women and those of Black and Ethnic minority backgrounds. They have suffered immensely from the effects of the pandemic and are in bad need of a significant pay rise. Yet in his recent budget, Chancellor Rishi Sunak decided to give carers just a 1p per hour pay rise. An insult accompanied by a failure to increase carers allowance for those in the informal care sector.

This is why I wrote to the Chancellor recently to speak out for my constituents who are carers and ask him to take action to rectify this insult. He responded this week to tell me that the Government values care workers. I’m not sure that will be of much help to the carers who are currently forced to go to food banks. Perhaps he’ll also add a clap or a badge into the bargain at a later stage.

Solidarity with British Gas Workers

Solidarity to all the British Gas workers in Edmonton this week who are the victims of British Gas’s disgraceful attempts to fire and rehire their workers on worse pay and conditions. Today, British Gas began the process of firing those workers who refused to accept their new terms.  As recently as 2019 the CEO of Centrica, which owns British Gas, gave himself a 44% pay rise but is now using the pandemic as an opportunity to line his pockets at the expense of the workers who make those profits possible.

The Government should act at the earliest opportunity to stop the ‘fire and rehire’ practice and in the meantime the GMB Union and its members have my complete backing as they fight for the rights of their members.

——————————-

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