Public Health

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

My city, Coventry, has made enormous sacrifices as this invisible disease has turned our entire world upside down, and I would just like to pay tribute to all those who have lost loved ones during this difficult time.

Since the beginning of this pandemic, I have persistently reminded this Government of the Chancellor’s promise in March, when he said “whatever it takes” to support people out of the crisis. Instead, last week, the Government exacerbated the economic crisis in communities such as mine by putting Coventry in tier 3 and announcing a spending review that fell unacceptably short. Key workers will have their pay frozen. There will be cuts to universal credit. Our NHS, police and schools will be completely underfunded. There are no plans for jobs and no plans to upgrade skills. Hard-working people will be hammered by a council tax bombshell handed down by the Government.

I have been contacted by countless small businesses and self-employed people, understandably heartbroken by the Government’s decision. They include pub owner Libby Payne, whose own pub, the Aardvark, in my constituency has felt the weight of lockdown. She has always operated in covid-safe ways, within the guidelines, and she has never had a customer question her practices. She describes her business as her “customers’ living room,” and many of her customers unfortunately now live alone in isolation, unable to see the people that they class as family. Libby has had zero cases linked to her business, yet she feels penalised—all because her postcode is in Coventry, not London. That is exactly what is happening to our pubs up and down the country, which we all regard as the heart of all our communities.

I cannot in good conscience actively support a tiered system that, although intended to protect my community and protect lives, deprives my constituents of the chance to see loved ones in the run-up to Christmas, adversely impacts my constituents’ mental and physical health, cripples my local economy and starves the livelihoods of both men and women who have done nothing but the right thing since the beginning of the pandemic, yet have had their sacrifices routinely overlooked by the Government.

All these measures are due to pass today, and I urge the Government to review the allocation of the tier system on a sub-regional level. I am glad that the Prime Minister said he was considering that, but it is a rather long time to wait until February. In the meantime, I would ask the Government to implement mass lateral flow testing, provide the support that our public services need, provide the financial support that our businesses and my constituents need, and reverse the council tax bombshell on my very hard-working residents.