Today was my first opportunity to challenge the government as Shadow Leader of the House of Commons. The government controls most of the parliamentary timetable, so weekly Business Questions are an opportunity to scrutinise these decisions closely (THREAD).
Up against my opposite number Jacob Rees Mogg, I first asked about the government’s attempts to restrict voting through their #VoterID proposals. This is a scandalous attack on democracy.
Next, social care. This is more urgent than ever. 659 days since Prime Minister said he had a plan to fix it, 10 years since Dilnot Commission proposed such a plan. When will the govt act?
Then, the #buildingsafety crisis. Four years on from the Grenfell Tower tragedy, govt is still pushing 1000s of people into debt, for a problem they did not cause #morethancladding.
I closed the session demanding real accountability in the public Covid inquiry. We’ve had one of the worst death rates and economic downturns of any country. We owe it to the country to find out what went wrong – and the government must learn from mistakes.
I used some of my time opposite Jacob Rees Mogg this morning to invite him to congratulate Labour's @votedannorris, his predecessor MP, who the people N Somerset voted for in such large numbers recently.
It's great to see the level of Labour support in West of England. Jacob congratulated Dan Norris but he must know he is on notice for his own seat after that result.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
The #CladdingScandal is a story of broken Tory promises, pushing thousands into financial hardship and paralysing part of the housing market. As the #FireSafetyBill comes back to the Commons, here is a refresher of just a few of the government's broken promises so far (THREAD).
Why does this matter? There are hundreds of thousands of leaseholders in the UK still living in buildings with unsafe cladding and other fire safety issues, almost four years after the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Today, MPs will vote on an amendment which would legally protect leaseholders from the costs of a problem they did not cause. Legal protection is extremely important - on the evidence below, it is clear leaseholders need more than Tory promises.
This morning's updated #Covid news will sobering. We need urgent action but also we didn't need to be here.
Weeks ago, Labour leader Keir saw the evidence and called for a short circuit breaker over half term to fix testing etc.
- Johnson ridiculed it
- Sunak blocked it.
2.
Now we face a much harder lockdown
- this Tory Govt were too slow to act, on health or on jobs
- people are suffering
- if move to greater restrictions govt needs to use time to fix testing and make a proper plan so they don’t keep repeating the same mistakes
3. It is desperately sad. So many people are going to suffer more. The consequences of this were always going to be tough but the extent of how bad a situation we are in now was both predictable and predicted.
Posting to reiterate my strong support for Labour's call on govt to implement circuit breakers with targetted financial support to prevent hardship and loss of jobs, rapid improvement to test&trace, better comms and more. Govt is refusing to heed call from own scientific advisors
Meanwhile in Bristol our city council and public health leaders are doing their best with a very unsatisfactory level of support from national govt. Businesses, jobs, lives and livelihoods are at stake and without clear national govt leadership that's really difficult.
Bristol Covid infections and hospitalizations rising rapidly and it's a shared responsibility for us all to help halt this by following social distancing and other guidance. We all have a role to play.
Please all follow the guidance- lives and livelihoods at stake
THREAD: 1. People in private rented homes are struggling and govt must act. government has paused evictions for three months and answered Labour’s call to increase the Local Housing Allowance. Both are welcome, but do not go far enough.
2. Jobs and livelihoods will take time to recover, and if evictions are allowed to restart before people can start earning again, we could see an unprecedented spike in homelessness. This is avoidable and govt needs to act.
3. In the long term we urgently need to fix our broken housing system, with stronger regulation of rented sector and more affordable and social housing. In the short-term, our 5-point plan would help many people not to lose their homes because of the necessary Covid-19 measures.
News from UK-EU negotiations. 1. Likely to be postponed. 2. Gove admitd that security Agreement probably won't be done by end of year. 3. Likely services wouldn't be included in the trade deal. 4. This is all a long way from 'exact same benefits' the Theresa May govt promised.
On 1, likely delay, that's because of Covid19, which is understandable. But that's exactly why we proposed amendment to Withdrawal Agreement Bill to give govt option of delaying, because of unforeseen events. Govt refused. This is dangerous, esp. if security Agreement not done.
On 2, Gove admitting may not have Agreement on security by end of this year, this will cause security and police chiefs huge problems. If no replacement for European Arrest Warrant arrangements it will be very difficult to return criminals between UK and EU (either direction)
During the campaign I met lots of people I've worked with or helped during the last 4 years but also realised lots of people don't know what an MP can (and can't) do in constituency or Westminster. I'll blog about this later in the week. For now, some examples of how I can help:
If you're having problems and got stuck in a process with Universal Credit, Tax office, immigration service, benefits assessments, council or any other state agency - i. e. Public not private - my caseworkers and I may be able to advocate on your behalf and get it sorted.
We can't help with initial applications usually, that's something Citizen's Advice or Law Centres or local advice agencies better for. But once a process has started, if it gets stuck or you think something has gone wrong, we can try to help.