Whilst the weather has been far from consistent for springtime, I hope you are managing to find your way back to some degree of normality and stability as Covid restrictions continue to ease.
As I mentioned in my previous newsletter, please do continue to behave responsibly. We must proceed with our newfound freedoms with caution, so as not to undo the progress we’ve made, so please do stick by the rules while enjoying yourself! A reminder of what we can and cannot do under current restrictions can be found here.
Below you can learn more about the work I've been doing over the last few weeks. As always, please get in touch if you have any comments or issues that my team and I might be able to help you with.
This decision has been years in the works, and I have supported Jake and his family since 2017 while they have campaigned to have these access criteria changed. Back in 2020, I helped bring Jake’s fight for Spinraza to Parliament for Rare Diseases Day, and his case has seen coverage from local and national news outlets. Jake even managed to tell his story on BBC News, to raise awareness of his situation. I am proud to have supported him through this journey, which has been worth every minute for this news alone. I wish Jake all the best of luck in his future, which now looks even brighter thanks to this decision.
Local Election Results
I want to thank everyone who participated in the electoral process and voted in the local elections. Congratulations to all the councillors elected in Bristol East.
I was really pleased to see Marvin Rees re-elected as Mayor of Bristol, and that he will now be joined by Labour’s Dan Norris, our new Mayor for the West of England Combined Authority (covering Bristol, BANES, and South Gloucestershire).
I was delighted too that all Labour incumbents standing for re-election were successful, which is a testament to their hard work. Asher Craig, Nicola Beech, Steve Pearce and Fabian Breckels in St George, Craig Cheney in Hillfields and Tim Rippington in Brislington East are now joined by new Labour councillors, Amal Ali in Frome Vale, Marley Bennett in Eastville, Ellie King in Hillfields, and Katja Hornchen in Brislington East. If you’re not sure who your new Councillors are, you can check on Bristol Council’s website.
I am looking forward to working with representatives from all parties to deliver on our shared priorities, from attracting investment and opportunity to east Bristol, building homes and protecting services and green spaces, to tackling the climate and ecological emergencies.
In-work Poverty
I raised the issue of in-work poverty during a session in the Commons earlier this month, citing reports that three quarters of children living in poverty have at least one adult working in their household. You can see my full question here. Unfortunately, this is a reality facing an increasing number of families across the UK.
The Minister replied saying that work was the best route out of poverty. I don’t contest this in normal circumstances, but what the Minister fails to understand is that insecure, low paid work is often the only option - especially a year into the pandemic. The Government has scrapped the £20 Universal Credit uplift, frozen public sector pay, and failed to protect workers being bullied into accepting worse contracts. If the work is poorly paid and the lines of support for those in poverty have been severed, then there is no route out at all. I’ll be pushing for a living wage that people can genuinely afford to live on and calling for a permanent extension to the uplift in Universal Credit and legacy benefits.
The Queen’s Speech and the Planning System
In the day’s debate on the Queen’s Speech on the theme, ‘Affordable and Safe Housing for All’, I challenged the Government over its proposed overhaul of the planning system, which risks putting even more power in the hands of developers and side-lining local communities. If these proposals go ahead, they will erode protections for green spaces while offering no guarantees that the housing built will be genuinely affordable.
As well as raising the absence of much-needed social care reforms, I also called out the Government’s lack of ambition on a green recovery, problems with it’s flagship environmental legislation, lack of proposals to enhance worker’s rights and draconian proposals to require photo ID for voting in general elections – which is a thinly veiled attempt to disenfranchise vulnerable voters.
17th – 21st May marked Dementia Action Week, an opportunity to discuss issues relating to dementia care and demand further Government support for people with dementia and their families. I have been raising awareness for Dementia Action Week on social media, and I attended Dementia Friends Training with the Alzheimer’s Society during the week.
This year’s theme for Dementia Action Week was #CureTheCareSystem. This was particularly timely with this year’s Queen’s Speech, in which the Government failed to include its plans to reform social care that it has claimed have been ready for two years. I briefly managed to raise this in Parliament, while responding to the Queen’s Speech debate, as those reliant on social care in Bristol East can’t afford to wait any longer for our social care system to be fixed. You can watch my response to the debate here.
Palestine
Thank you to everyone who has been in touch about the situation. You can see my initial statement here. In response, I’ve written to the Foreign Secretary demanding urgent action on two occasions in the last month. I sent an initial letter on the 23rd April regarding forced evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, and then a follow-up last week after the flashpoint of violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque – but haven’t received a response from the Foreign Office to either.
I was relieved to hear a ceasefire between Israeli forces and Hamas announced on Friday 21st May. After the horrendous violence of the last fortnight it is essential that this fragile peace is maintained. Israel and Palestine must work together, with the help of the international community, toward a permanent peace and a two-state solution. Rocket attacks, indiscriminate violence, and attempts to forcibly evict whole communities must end, as dialogue and diplomacy is the only way to bring about a lasting political settlement.
Government guidance from 29th March states that prisons will be able to reopen for visits once they reach Stage 3 in the National Framework, which sets out where a prison is in terms of Covid infections and how able they are to keep things under control. However, I have been made aware of at least one prison that has reached Stage 3 but is still not allowing visits. The Minister clarified that this is partially determined by individual prison governors. However, I will continue to press the Government to monitor this situation, to give families of people in prison the hope that visits can resume soon.
My Exchange with the Mogg
Leader of the House Jacob Rees Mogg was behaving typically during a recent Business Questions, denouncing “socialist councils” for their “war on motorists” – by which he means bike lanes, Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods and encouraging active travel, which is meant to be something his Government supports.
He also denounced the West of England Combined Authority – despite it being the Tories who set it up – for “sucking money out of NE Somerset into Bristol”. As I pointed out in my question to him, we are still waiting for funding from the Government for the Temple Quarter regeneration and improvements to transport infrastructure, such as the A4 corridor. His constituents work, shop, and take part in leisure activities in Bristol, and they contribute to congestion on Bristol’s roads. He ought to be getting behind efforts to improve the city-region, including making sure the West of England isn’t left out of the Government’s plans for “levelling up”.
I have serious concerns about some of the provisions in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that would force the police to determine what sort of protests are deemed legitimate, and what sort of protests are not. This could set a worrying precedent for political interference in how protests are policed, and put at risk the degree to which police can be politically impartial, as they should be. Of course criminal behaviour during protests cannot be condoned, but we already have laws in place to deal with that. Part 3 of this Bill is an undemocratic, politically-motivated, attempt to silence the Government’s critics, and as such, should be resisted.
Walk to School
As part of Living Streets ‘Walk to School Week’ I joined children, parents, and staff from Minerva Primary Academy School in Hillfields on their daily commute. Despite getting drenched in a month-late April shower, it proved a fantastic way of encouraging people to travel sustainably and get some exercise done early in the day. The rain certainly didn’t put any of the children off!
We were joined by the local Hillfields Councillors Craig Cheney and Ellie King, and Strider, the campaign’s mascot. The school run generates half a million tonnes of CO2 a year. Walking to school means less congestion, less pollution, and healthier children. I know it’s not a possibility for every family, but I do hope this encourages others to get involved. You can read more about Living Streets campaign here.
Covid Memorial
Earlier in the month, to mark International Workers’ Memorial Day, I visited the Covid Memorial Wall in London – which is a heart-breaking tribute to the 150,000 lives lost to this terrible virus over the past year and a half.
Green Transport
As part of my role as Labour’s Shadow Minister for Green Transport, I pressed the Government on the need to fix our existing roads, rather than focus on a massive expansion of our road network in the midst of a climate emergency. We are facing an £11bn backlog in pothole repairs, yet the Government has slashed the road maintenance budget by £375 million whilst pledging £27 billion to build new roads, which will have a significant carbon impact.
The Environment
I continued my work pushing for a green economic recovery, and wrote to the Government to ask Ministers to set out their plans to create the green apprenticeships we need to address the climate emergency, grow the green economy and tackle growing youth unemployment.
I was also delighted to have the opportunity to work with the Marine Conservation Society and Rewilding Britain and sign up as a Blue Carbon Champion in Parliament. I will be doing what I can in Parliament to push the Government to be more ambitious in rewilding our seas and protecting our blue carbon stores.
Finally, I had the chance to speak in the Report Stage debate for the long-delayed Environment Bill. This Bill is the flagship environmental legislation for the Government after Brexit, but unfortunately it falls short of what is needed in several areas. One particularly disappointing aspect of the Bill are the weak proposals on deforestation; firms will be required to eliminate illegal deforestation in their supply chains, but this ignores the crucial issue of legal deforestation, which is becoming more prevalent as nations, like Bolsonaro’s Brazil, chip away at existing protections. I used my speech to support amendments to tackle overseas deforestation and call on the Government to strengthen its proposals.
Please do get in touch!
My work continues on a range of other issues too, which you can read about if you follow me on social media, or in future newsletters. Do please, as always, get in touch if you have any comments or questions, or if you need help from me and my team. You can email me at kerry.mccarthy.mp@parliament.uk or call 0117 939 9901.
Best wishes, Kerry McCarthy, Member of Parliament for Bristol East
