Message from Celia Dignan, Chair of H&WG CLP
Our community is facing unprecedented challenges. Many people face severe hardship due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In Hornsey & Wood Green, claims for unemployment benefit have soared by 180 per cent. Many who are on furlough schemes are receiving too little pay or excluded from any government support, including thousands of freelance workers in the creative industries.
In our neighbouring Haringey constituency of Tottenham, an unprecedented 45 per cent of residents are unemployed or on furlough schemes. The number of local foodbanks in Hornsey & Wood Green has more than doubled. The government is mismanaging the pandemic in the UK and their recovery plans are totally inadequate.
Our members continue to actively support local community help schemes but if we’re all going to weather this crisis together, leaving nobody behind, we also need political solutions. We believe in solidarity, not charity.
Adequate Funding For Haringey Council
Local Councils around the country faced this pandemic with funding reduced and services weakened following ten years of Tory government austerity policies. Haringey’s Labour Council has done an excellent job of providing and co-ordinating emergency help but the government has not fully reimbursed them. Our members will campaign for proper government funding for Haringey and all UK councils. Haringey Council must be in a position to continue to deliver ever more vital council homes and services and provide critical help for our community.
Support our local jobs, incomes and economy
Haringey’s jobs and economy will survive if the government provides support to the people and local businesses who need it. The government must act now to save jobs and small businesses with grants, and ensure the furlough scheme covers all who need it. We support a Green Recovery. We believe the dysfunctional Universal Credit scheme should be scrapped and replaced with a system that fully supports people’s needs. Government must also enact legislation to end low pay and insecure work.
End the hostile environment
We are proud to live in a diverse constituency and borough. That diversity enriches all our lives. We support the Black Lives Matter movement and oppose the hostile environment for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. We support full voting and residential rights for EU nationals.
We support the rights of disabled people to full equality. Some people with disabilities who live in our community are facing a choice between their life and their livelihood. Alternative support must be provided for those who have to shield. The hostile environment disabled people face in the benefits system is unacceptable and must change.
Free NHS & strengthen local democracy
We are proud of our NHS and all who work in it and we campaign to ensure it remains free at the point of use and that privatisation is ended. The government is accelerating plans to centralise control and remove local oversight of NHS services through an unnecessary structural reorganisation. We will vigorously campaign against these proposals that will bring about further privatisation of our health services.
The plan also includes measures to remove Care Services from local council control. Along with recent proposals in the government’s ‘Planning for the Future’ white paper to divest local councils of their control of local planning, these changes would massively reduce the role and influence of local councils and the voice of local people in our government and control of our local services.
Securing our young people’s future
Young people have fared badly during Covid. Child poverty is rising and income inequality has a direct impact on educational inequality. During lockdown, children and young people from poorer families were unable to access remote learning, with many not having access to computers or internet at home. Children lost six months of education and those taking GCSEs and A Levels experienced significant distress due to government mishandling of exam grades. Those facing examinations in summer 2021 need certainty about arrangements next year.
Hornsey & Wood Green Labour stands with our community in these and many other struggles. We will continue to demonstrate our solidarity through both practical support and political campaigning. Please join us in fighting to ensure that everyone in our community comes through this crisis with equal justice and fairness.
Solidarity.