Dear <<First Name>>

The latest edition of my e-newsletter contains an update on Covid-19 and my activities across the constituency and in Parliament.

Casework

This month my team and I have worked on over 1450 cases for constituents 

These included queries on housing, Greater Manchester Police, anti social behaviour, social services, social security and the situation in Palestine and Israel.

Covid-19 update

I want to thank everyone in Oldham and Saddleworth who continue to work hard to keep Covid transmission rates low in the Borough compared with rates in Greater Manchester and England overall. Many local businesses have now re-opened so please do what you can to support them and to do so safely. However with a rise in the Indian Covid variant in the UK we must not be complacent and it is important that we continue to follow guidelines. You can keep up to date with national guidelines here. 

We continue to see good progress on the Covid-19 vaccination roll out. Over 61 million people have received their first dose of the vaccine in the UK with over 23 million being fully vaccinated. In Oldham over 127,000 people have received the first dose of the vaccine and over 85,000 have received both doses. A huge thanks to NHS and public health teams for organising and delivering this with dozens of volunteer supporters. Oldham Council teams have also been out and about across Oldham sharing the latest information around Coronavirus. Thanks to these teams for their efforts.

As vice chair of the Coronavirus APPG I joined a cross-party group of over 60 MPs and peers urging the Government to introduce stricter checks at airports to prevent Covid being imported into the UK, including new variants that could evade current vaccines. It is clear that the Government should have moved India to the travel red list far earlier than it did.  In addition, we are calling on the UK to drive the development of international standards for Covid test and vaccination certificates to help border staff spot fake documents. We are also urging the UK Government to maintain funding for international research assisting the global fight against Covid-19. It comes after evidence received by the APPG found that cuts to the UK’s aid funding have impacted on several vital projects including work to help track Covid variants in India and Bangladesh. Read more here.

Last week, Dominic Cummings attended a joint session of the science and technology and health social care select committee to speak about his experiences of the Government's response to the pandemic. Cummings said the Prime Minister and senior ministers fell disastrously short of what the public should have expected. The Prime Minister failed to recognise the severity of the pandemic calling it a 'scare story' and never wanted to toughen border controls. He also said the Health Secretary misled other ministers and that the Cabinet Secretary lost faith in him. 

Unfortunately, Cummings evidence didn't surprise me at all. It was quite clear there wasn't a plan. What is shocking is the dysfunctional decision-making. Although it probably shouldn't be a shock given a recent change in Covid 'guidance' to 8 areas was published on a Government website late on a Friday without consulting or speaking with local leaders. This top down, centralised approach is a hallmark of this Government. It may well be one of the drivers of the country's high and unequal death toll. I have written a piece in The Independent about this, and the changes needed in our political system, particularly our political culture. You can read this here. 

Last week, I met with the Chairman of the Committee of Standards in Public Life, the former head of MI5, Lord Evans. I had written to him with Layla Moran MP and Caroline Lucas MP with our concerns about the lack of transparency of Government Covid contacts and the misleading statements by the Prime Minister and others about these contracts. As there has been no formal apology or correction of the record, there have been breaches in the Ministerial Code. This is something I have been pursuing for some time. We have exhausted every avenue available to us in Parliament without any recourse or sanction for those who have misled Parliament. You can read about this here and here. The meeting with Lord Evans was to try to establish what other avenues we may take and how we can ensure that the Nolan principles of ethical standards in public life apply to Parliamentarians. Unfortunately I found we didn’t get very far.

Dominic Cummings also raised concerns about the VIP channel procurement process (which included Tory donors) for Covid contracts. I have also been raising this in Parliament following the legal case I brought with the Good Law Project, Caroline & Layla, but holding the Government to account on these issues has proved very difficult -watch me try to get an answer to my question on PPE procurement. Earlier in the month, I asked the Prime Minister directly in Parliament to finally apologise for misleading, inadvertently or not, the House when he said that all the PPE contracts the Government had issued were in the public domain - they weren’t. I didn't get much of a response.

The Prime Minister has failed to provide even basic answers, failed to provide clear guidance and continues to make mistakes affecting millions of people. The Government must bring forward the timing of he public inquiry into Covid, to start in the summer and as soon as possible, to start in the summer.

I will continue to fight for the best support for my constituents while keeping you safe. Keep up to date on local information here and please take care.

Working for your Community Summer School

My eighth Summer School will take place from 12-16 July

As an MP, I am often asked if I can give young people some experience of an MP’s office but unfortunately I can’t accommodate them all. To try and give as many young people from Oldham as possible experience, I held my first ‘working for your community’ summer school for 18 -24 year olds in 2014 and because of the fantastic intake, the great programme and the popularity of it, I now hold this summer school annually. But my summer school is so much more than what happens in my office! It is about learning what politics is about – public service!

Open to 18-24 year olds, I have another very strong line up of contributors and leaders in the areas of politics, community development, campaigning, and communications. 

This year’s programme will be held virtually. If Covid restrictions change nearer the time we will look at holding some in-person sessions. The deadline to apply is by 5pm on Friday the 18th June. For more details on the application process, and what the Summer School involves, read more here.

Constituency update

The Government announced funding for electrification for the Transpennine line yet Greenfield will miss out again.

Electrification funding will go to 15 miles of the TransPennine line in North Yorkshire and 2 new stations outside Leeds. However, I am deeply frustrated that yet again Greenfield has been overlooked and ignored by the Government. I am also concerned that announcement appears to be a slightly more detailed re-announcement of previous commitments.
 
Back in January I asked the rail minister for a commitment for an accessible station at Greenfield. None was forthcoming and I fear we may be seeing why. We need full electrification on the line, it will bring environmental benefits, taking polluting diesel vehicles off the tracks. Electrification will also improve punctuality and reliability for passengers. Vitally, electrification will require a new footbridge at Greenfield, one that will be accessible for all. I back the call of my colleagues, in Labour’s transport team, for the integrated rail plan to be published now. It must involve a rolling programme of electrification, including for Greenfield, not delivering in dribs and drabs, which ends up costing the taxpayer more.

I want to offer my congratulations to Arooj Shah who became Oldham's Council Leader this month. She is also the first female Muslim Council Leader in the North. In a recent meeting with fellow Oldham MPs Jim McMahon and Angela Rayner, Cllr Shah made clear she would prioritise cleaner streets, a stronger relationship with local people and a focus on recovery. I also want to pay tribute to former Council Leader Sean Fielding for his hard work and determination in getting 'Towns' funding to Oldham in the form of £10.75m grant to help with the revitalisation of the town centre.

Related to this, I met with residents in Hathershaw with local councillors who were raising their concerns about fly-tipping and the few irresponsible residents who fail to clear up their mess. Key to this is getting landlords to take on their responsibilities and make sure that tenants know their responsibilities, have the bins they need etc. If we can’t get everyone to work together to keep the area nice, then I know the council will be taking action.

This month we remembered the victims of the Manchester Arena bomb including Oldhamers Lisa Lees and Alison Howe. We also remembered Fusilier Lee Rigby who was murdered on 22 May 2013. My thoughts are with family and friends at what will be a very painful time. 

I attended a virtual memorial event in Greater Manchester to remember the Rwanda genocide with local MPs, Nav Mishra and Rebecca Long Bailey. The event included moving survivor testimony and a poem from young people. 

I also held my regular quarterly meetings with Greater Manchester Police, First Choice Homes Oldham and Oldham Clinical Commissioning Group to discuss key matters in our Borough.

Parliamentary update

BBC investigation into deaths of vulnerable social security claimants

In March I was contacted by the BBC journalist Alex Homer who said he was investigating the deaths of vulnerable social security claimants. Over the next couple of months, I helped Alex with his investigation. Many of you will know that this has been a key priority of mine for a number of years. The deaths of Philippa Day, Errol Graham, Jodey Whiting and many others are not just shocking, they are scandalous: vulnerable citizens in receipt of State support by virtue of their vulnerability, suddenly lose this support with devastating consequences. Alex uncovered over 150 social security claimants who had died, mostly since 2010. The circumstances of many of these deaths can only be described as horrific. The list of those who have died includes an Oldham man. The findings shocked many but I believe that these deaths, which Alex found by painstakingly going through local media reports as part of his investigation, are just the tip of the iceberg. The results of Alex’s investigation were reported on BBC broadcast news earlier in May here where I made clear that there needs to be an independent public inquiry to investigate both the scale and causes of these deaths. The Government’s first job is to protect its people and its failing the most vulnerable.  I also wrote about this in The Times. Read here.

The Work and Pensions Select Committee

Related to this investigation, the Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey has repeatedly told the Work and Pensions Select Committee that her department does not have a legal duty of care or to “safeguard” its claimants.

She has said such duties are instead the responsibility of local agencies such as social services and the NHS. However the Disability News Service forwarded a copy of internal guidance for DWP staff to support vulnerable claimants to me which clearly states that the DWP DID have a duty of care. The guidance stated: “Where the claimant has a known background of mental illness there are minimum requirements that Jobcentre Plus should be adopting to ensure that we are not found to be neglectful in our duty of care towards these claimants.”

This means there are now at least two DWP internal documents, both dating from before 2016, that mention DWP’s ongoing duty of care to claimants. I raised this new evidence with Justin Tomlinson, the minister for disabled people, at a session of the work and pensions select committee. Unfortunately he declined to comment. If the Government are committed to protect and safeguard vulnerable claimants, they need to set up an independent public inquiry into the scale of deaths and the drivers behind them. The prevarication over whether the Department for Work and Pensions has a duty of care for claimants, when their own internal guidance says that they do, is quite breath-taking. Read the Disability News Service article here.

Ending Violence in Israel and Palestine

The violence that we have seen erupt once again in Israel and Palestine is horrific. My thoughts and condolences go to everyone who have lost loved ones. As a member of the APPG for Palestine, I have spoken, protested and written against the illegal Israeli settlements over many years. I have visited Israel and OPT to see for myself the immense injustice and appalling conditions Palestinians are being subject to. This latest violence was inevitable with leaders who are more concerned with their own power than a sustainable peace for their people and the region. It is shameful. The provocative attacks on Al Aqsa Mosque and the forced evictions at Sheikh Jarrah during the holy month of Ramadan was reprehensible. However, the launch of rockets into civilian areas in Israel by Hamas was also unacceptable as was the bombing of civilian areas in Gaza by Israeli forces. I signed the APPG’s statement calling for international law to be observed by all parties and for a cease fire. Although I wrote to the Foreign Secretary, I’m afraid I don’t hold much hope for our foreign policy – for this Government, trade trumps human rights time and time again. But I will keep putting pressure on the Foreign Secretary to work with the international community to reduce tensions. For too long peace between Israel and Palestine has been seen as too difficult. I will also pressurise the UK Government to recognise Palestine and to revoke arms licenses to those UK-based companies manufacturing arms or their components to sell to regimes like Israel.  At the same time I call on Hamas to formally recognise Israel and commit to work towards peace. Leaders on both sides must work for peace; diplomacy not violence. We must all redouble our efforts before more innocent people - Israeli & Palestinian - lose their lives.

At last! A review of Secondary Breast Cancer

Every year, over 55,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, the most common form of cancer. Although most (nearly 90%) will recover after treatment, some (1/3) will go on to develop Secondary Breast Cancer (SBC or metastatic breast cancer) which has usually spread to other parts of the body; this can happen several years later. But we don’t know enough about SBC – how many women are living with SBC, the survival rates after different treatments, and the treatments available to SBC who are predominantly women in different parts of the country. As a member of the breast cancer APPG, I have been pushing hard for a national audit of Secondary Breast Cancer. I am delighted that six years after it was promised, NHS England has finally announced it will fund a National Secondary Breast Cancer (SBC) Audit. Although progress has been painfully slow, I’m pleased that this was confirmed a few weeks ago. This is a vital step towards ensuring a national approach to the monitoring of SBC and of SBC therapies, and I look forward to hearing more about the progress of the audit. There remains much more to do to ensure secondary breast cancer patients receive the very best treatment and care. This wouldn’t have happened without my Saddleworth constituent, Jo Taylor. Jo raised this with me back in 2015 and has been a determined campaigner ever since. Thank you so much Jo.  

The Government is failing small business

Many of you will remember the collapse of the construction giant Carillion in 2018. Over 780 small businesses went into insolvency as a result of this and those that survived were left with crippling debts of on average £140,000 each; this included Neil Skinner who had a small business in my constituency. In response to that I proposed a Project Bank Account Bill which would have prevented these insolvencies and losses. On top of that, it would stop the appalling practice of late payments. I offered the Bill to the Government but they failed to act. They are now even failing to monitor the use of project bank accounts by Government departments, despite having mandated their use on all public sector projects where appropriate. I have submitted written questions to several Government departments on what information they held on the use of project bank accounts (PBAs). The answers seemed to show that the Government’s project bank accounts policy is only for show with nothing in place to force implementation. I raised this with the Cabinet Secretary at oral questions recently and he has agreed to meet with me.  I will press him to make sure PBAs are being utilised where they can be and to explore other opportunities in the forthcoming Building Safety Bill to tackle the scourge of late payments throughout the supply chain. Read more here.

Is the Government serious about levelling up?

My new clause to the Finance Bill last week sought to compel the Chancellor to assess the impact of this legislation on poverty, inequalities and, subsequently, our health. Unfortunately, it wasn’t adopted by the Government. Watch here. Recent analysis from the think tank, IPPR showed working families have come under increasing financial pressure during the last 25 years from soaring property prices, private sector rent hikes and crippling childcare costs which shows the UK’s poverty rate among working households last year reached a record high this century. An increase in relative poverty from 13% in 1996 to 17.4% of working households in the year to March 2020 illustrates the combination of low wage rises and spiralling cost of living faced by a group that Theresa May described when she was prime minister as the “just about managing”. After a year like no other, when the country’s structural inequalities have been laid bare, a driver of the ‘UK’s high and unequal death toll’ according to Professor Sir Michael Marmot, why does the Government say they are committed to ‘levelling up’ and then fail to assess that their spending plans will achieve this? We must #BuildBackFairer My clause would have enabled this. 

I also challenged the Prime Minister and Health Secretary to follow Michael Marmot’s advice to #BuildBackFairer. Watch here. And yet more evidence that this Government isn’t really serious about ‘levelling up’ came when the Conservatives voted against Labour's proposals to support Joe Biden's global minimum corporate tax on big multinationals. We're the only G7 country not supporting it. Boris Johnson is risking billions of pounds in tax revenue that could be spent on our recovery, for example, maintaining the £20 uplift to Universal Credit claimants past September.

Another driver of our ‘high and unequal Covid death toll’ according to Michael Marmot is our divisive political culture. That’s why as Co-Chair of the APPG on Compassionate Politics, I have been campaigning for a shift in our political culture, which is based on co-operation, collaboration and mutual respect. Part of this has involved tackling the rise of abuse online. It was a particular pleasure to interview former Arsenal and French international footballer, Thierry Henry and current Manchester City and England player Lucy Bronze who very bravely shared their experiences of online abuse in a session I co-chaired last week week for the APPG on Compassionate Politics. The failures of social media platforms are clear and they need to take more responsibility. But legislation must also catch up. The Government failed to implement Leveson 2 but I will be pressing them to ensure they don’t shirk their responsibilities in the Online Safety Bill. This Bill must ensure we prevent and protect those on social media from online hate, discrimination and wider harms. I also chaired an APPG on Compassionate Politics session earlier in the month looking at the culture of the modern media and its influence on politics. You can watch back here. 

In addition to tackling online abuse and changing our political culture, I also believe we need to change the political system as a whole. We need a system that is more inclusive and that works for us all. The fact that we are seeing the lowest levels of trust and confidence in politics (according to the Hansard Society) affecting how people participate is an indicator of how urgently we need to change our politics. As such, I chaired a virtual session on proportional representation and the need for electoral reform earlier this month with fantastic presentations from Professors Rob Ford from University of Manchester and Jonathan Rodden from Stanford University. The purely democratic problems with First Past the Post are widely known. What's less well understood is the profound implications it has for progressive parties, voters and politics. This was a really interesting session providing compelling arguments for changing our system. You can see the webinar here.

As the Environment Bill returned to the Commons again, I submitted another New Clause to make sure that the Government assesses the impact of the Bill on air quality and health, particularly focusing on how the exposure to harmful air pollutants is distributed across communities, including different socioeconomic groups and those with protected characteristics. There’s significant evidence that this differential exposure to health risks and hazards accounts for the health inequalities across the UK, including the 12 year life expectancy gap between rich and poor areas here in Oldham.
 
Ella Kissi-Debrah was nine years old when she died of an asthma attack. At the inquest into her death the Coroner said that the high levels of Nitrogen Dioxide, which exceeded World Health Organisation and EU permitted levels, close to where she lived had contributed to her death.  My clause would have ensured that the Bill protected all communities from the health risks associated with exposure to harmful air pollutants, and not just those who can afford to live in areas with cleaner air.  

Dementia action week and Dementia 'moonshot' research inquiry

I was so pleased to have joined last month's "Singing for the Brain" session with local people to mark Dementia Action Week. Thank you to all who organised this fabulous session and to the lovely participants for their warm welcome. I also spoke about Dementia Action Week here in the run up to DAW. As many will know, dementia is linked to a higher risk of COVIDー19 infections, hospitalization and unfortunately is the main underlying condition for 6 out of 10 Covid deaths. However, dementia patients are often forgotten in pandemic related strategies including such as vaccination strategies.  I also spoke in a General Debate on Dementia Action Week focusing on the need to #CuretheCareSystem both in terms fixing the funding of care – someone with dementia or their family will pay on average £100,000 for their care – but also the quality of care, which can vary immensely. Watch here.

As co-chair of the Dementia APPG, I have also been leading an inquiry into dementia research. Our third evidence session focused on the prevention of dementia. In addition to being joined by a fantastic group of researchers, it was great to have former rugby international Ben Kay, who is taking part in the PREVENT study to track how brain trauma in sport may affect the incidence of dementia as part of our Dementia Moonshot inquiry. You can watch back here. 

I was delighted to be re-elected as co-chair of the Women in the Penal System APPG this month at our AGM.  Fellow co-chair Jackie Doyle-Price MP and I have introduced an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that would scrap courts' power to remand people to prison "for their own protection". The Howard League is supporting our amendment. Find out more here.

I asked a question about Domestic Abuse services and the need for more support for local services in Parliament. At a recent Oldham roundtable on domestic abuse, we heard of the increase in abuse during lockdown and the issues that the victims were facing. In particular, the lack of measures to address wider cultural issues, the fact that poverty is a driver and consequence of abuse, and the lack of availability of appropriately adapted or supported safe accommodation, were all cited as issues with the Government’s new Domestic Abuse Act 2021. I asked the Minister what discussions he has had with his counterparts in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that the Domestic Abuse Act is as effective as we all want it to be? At the moment, it is just a sticking plaster over a gaping wound. Read the response here.

Please do continue to follow the Covid-19 guidelines and stay safe everyone.