Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I want to talk about my constituency, which has been in the news recently, and the problems it faces. There are many intergenerational households in my constituency, and they are often overcrowded, not out of choice but because people cannot afford housing in the private sector and there are long waiting lists for social housing. Many of them are on the minimum wage, on zero-hours contracts and in insecure work, and most are unable to work from home. They are the factory workers, kitchen workers and hospital workers. Many do not have cars and have to use public transport.

It is not uncommon for many people to occupy one house—perhaps six people living in a two-bedroom house. If one person gets infected, how are they supposed to self-isolate in that house? For those and many other reasons, it has been quite hard for many people to self-isolate. The Government say they have provided money and support, but that is not correct—certainly not in Bolton, because the rules are so vague and unclear and access to money and support has been an extreme nightmare for my constituents. In fact, it was recently reported that Tory-controlled Bolton Council was found to have the lowest rate of uptake, as the council had made it exceptionally hard for people to access support.

I have raised this issue for many months, but to date nothing has been done. Instead, we hear Ministers talk about the issue of vaccine hesitancy, trying to blame my constituents for the issues we have. Let me explain: the vaccine roll-out in parts of Bolton that are in my constituency was done differently from how it was done in other places. We started with one vaccination centre in the town centre, with around five vaccinators. That was supposed to cover six sevenths of my constituency—a massive area. Some people have to take three buses to get to the town centre.

I raised this issue with the powers that be and the people involved in the vaccine roll-out—I mentioned the locality, the issue of accessibility and the fact that vaccination rates were low because of that. I asked for two additional fixed vaccination centres in my constituency, but that has not yet happened. Over the weekend, we had a temporary vaccination site which was able to vaccinate around 5,000 people. That shows that there is no vaccine hesitancy; the problem lay in the original roll-out.

I am not trying to criticise or blame anyone. Everyone has been working really hard in the NHS, and I pay tribute to all the volunteers who have been acting as marshals, the St John Ambulance brigade and everyone else who has been involved in rolling out the programme. But we have to remind Ministers that their words carry consequences and have effects. I have already had emails from constituents saying, “Well, many of us British people did not go abroad, and therefore your people are causing the infections.” These kinds of comments must be made very carefully.