Kate Osamor
MP for Edmonton and Winchmore Hill · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“I thank my hon. Friend for her answer. For the first time in centuries, Catholic leaders were prohibited from entering the Church of Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to celebrate a private mass on Palm Sunday.”
“If the Government are serious about putting cancer patients “front and centre”, as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has previously stated, they must do more to support stretched and under-resourced hospitals such as the North Middlesex, as well as its dedicated and hard-working staff—not only to protect the dignity and we…”
“The trust has been taking steps to improve the experience of oncology patients at North Middlesex hospital through efforts to reduce waiting times and speed up the pathway for them.”
“Mr Thorn was diagnosed with cancer in July 2022, and in January 2023 he began chemotherapy treatment. Following the conclusion of the first type of chemotherapy treatment, Mr Thorn was told multiple times that he needed to be admitted back into hospital.”
“Secondly, will the Minister consider carrying out a wider assessment of the safety and suitability of the settings in which immunocompromised oncology patients are placed when they are admitted to hospitals across the country, and how that may affect outcomes for cancer patients?”
“Despite an acute oncology service that works extremely hard to prioritise those patients, the North Middlesex hospital emergency department often struggles to provide appropriate private triage areas or guarantee a rapid review for vulnerable cancer patients, because of high patient volumes and infection-control pressures.”
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“London is one of the most diverse cities in the world, which we should all be proud of, yet many Londoners listening to this, and those who have heard about and read the report, will have no confidence in our fire service with its racist and misogynist culture. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that firefighters wear body-worn video cameras when they enter families’ homes? Confidence will be very low and we need to ensure that we are working not only for all our constituents but for those people who are watching and may not believe that we are doing our job.”
“Revelations that the Home Office allowed 50 cases of diphtheria to spread through Manston processing centre are truly shocking. This latest scandal is the unavoidable result of the Government’s endless demonisation of refugees. Will the Minister confirm what action he is taking to test and care for refugees in other processing centres across the country?”
“Secondly, we must ensure that bursaries for nursing students are restored so that more people—particularly those from more disadvantaged backgrounds—can access training. Lastly, the Government need to provide a renewed commitment to ensure that the NHS delivers on its commitment to combat institutional racism alongside tackling health inequalities. We need an expanded training programme to truly tackle discrimination within the NHS. Without that commitment, countless staff will have no choice but to quit working for the NHS.”
“Earlier this year, the BME Leadership Network published the “Shattered Hopes” report, which was based on surveys and roundtables of staff, revealing results that were shocking to read. It found that more than half of BME NHS leaders have considered leaving the NHS in the last three years because of their experiences of racism, and that colleagues, leaders and managers were a more common source of racist treatment than members of the public, which is truly shocking. I want to provide the Minister with some recommendations, which I hope he will be able to address in his summing up. First, it goes without saying that the Government must give a pay rise to doctors, nurses and all staff in the NHS that is at least above the current rate of inflation, to protect their standards of living and to ensure the retention of staff.”
“Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Hollobone. It is a great pleasure to be part of this important debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) for securing it and for setting the dire scene in the NHS. I will use my speech to talk about when I was a practice manager before I became an MP, and I want to speak about the way in which racism and discrimination affects the wellbeing of black and minority ethnic staff. Some 22.4% of NHS staff in England are from BME backgrounds, so they are disproportionately represented in the NHS but are under-represented in senior leadership. If we want an acceptable level of NHS staffing, it is crucial that racism and discrimination against staff from BME backgrounds is properly challenged.”
“3. If he will make an estimate of the number and proportion of males convicted under joint enterprise who were (a) Black and (b) from other ethnic groups.”
“Members have been hearing for nearly a decade that the data will be released soon, but nothing ever comes of it. What possible excuse can there be for not being open about which prisoners have been convicted under this discredited and biased doctrine and which have not? It is that the data would clearly show how joint enterprise has been used to target black people disproportionately, particularly young black men.”
“He told us last week that we need greater investment in medium to long-term programmes to ensure resilience to climate change, which would include irrigation schemes and drought-resistant crops. I hope the Minister, who is in his place, will listen to all of us and be able to help not only those of us in this Chamber today, but the families who are worried sick from not knowing whether their families are alive or dead.”
“In 2022, it has received less than a third of that figure—£55 million. The Government are failing to do all that is possible to provide humanitarian support and help create the conditions for lasting peace and prosperity for the people of Ethiopia. I would therefore like to make three recommendations to the Minister. First, we must restore our commitment to spending 0.7% of GDP on overseas development assistance if we want to retain the capacity to adequately respond to crises. Secondly, a significant amount of funding must be immediately directed to bilateral aid for Ethiopia. Thirdly, we need to restore our previous contributions to multilateral agencies, such as the World Food Programme. The Committee also received evidence from Mamadou Dian Balde, the UNHCR representative in Ethiopia.”
“Climate change is increasing the prevalence of droughts, and the covid pandemic is devastating economies and livelihoods. We were told that there is the real possibility of famine and that the World Food Programme has not managed to get aid into Tigray since 24 August. We must welcome the recent agreement to allow full access to food and aid, but must closely track its implementation. There is no time to waste with almost a third of children already suffering from malnutrition. Michael Dunford, who is regional director at the World Food Programme across the horn of Africa, said at the evidence session that the cuts to the overseas aid budget are harming the WFP’s ability to respond to people’s needs. He said that, in 2019, the World Food Programme benefited from £181 million funding from the UK Government.”
“Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the conflict, more than 3 million are internally displaced and 13 million need food aid in northern Ethiopia. Yet there is a sense that this humanitarian crisis is not being treated with the utmost urgency. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, the crisis in Ethiopia is one of the 10 most neglected displacement crises in the world, all of which are in Africa. Last week, members of the International Development Committee and I were lucky enough to be joined by experts on the horn of Africa’s hunger crisis. We were told that the conflict in Tigray has intersected with a series of other factors to create a devastating food crisis. High inflation in world markets, partly as a result of the conflict in Ukraine, is pushing up the price of food and fertilisers.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Gary. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) for securing this important debate and setting the scene. As horrific as it is, it is important that we never forget. It goes without saying that the suffering caused by the conflict in Ethiopia is truly heartbreaking. I have constituents with family in Tigray who have not seen or heard from any of their family members in the past two years because of the communication blackout. They do not know whether their families are alive or dead. Indeed, the stories they have heard about the conditions in Tigray mean that their assumption is that some of their family members will almost certainly have passed away.”
“I welcome the Minister to his place. The floods in Nigeria have already left more than 1 million people displaced, 200,000 homes destroyed and, sadly, 600 people dead. In the wake of those floods, cholera cases are skyrocketing in some areas, due to a lack of access to clean water. Will the Minister assure me that the Government will be focusing aid to help ensure access to water and sanitation, and prevent the death toll from rising further?”
“I congratulate the Secretary of State on her new role. A great success was achieved earlier this year when a deal was agreed at the WTO to waiver some rights on the manufacture of covid vaccines, yet the deal does not apply to treatment, so countries such as Pakistan and South Africa are urging an extension of the waiver. Can the Government commit to being a positive voice in negotiations and pledge to support a waiver on covid-19 treatments?”
“We recently heard that negotiations to conclude a trade deal with India have stalled because of the comments made by the Home Secretary about migrants from that country—just another mess to lay at her door. Will the Secretary of State tell us whether she will ensure that the Home Secretary’s hardline opposition to migration will not harm our economic relationships?”
“I thank the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee and the entire Committee for this important report. It rightly brings attention to the additional discrimination in the workplace and stigma that women from ethnic minorities go through during the menopause phase, which is often neglected in the wider conversation. Disappointingly, however, these problems were not mentioned in the relevant section of the Government’s women’s health strategy. Does the right hon. Lady agree that the Government should give consideration to the specific issues faced by ethnic minority women?”
“In the meantime, there should be a pause on removing free-to-use ATMs. Otherwise, more of my constituents will be further excluded.”
“Without a clear maximum geographical distance between cash machines, we risk sleepwalking into a situation where cash deserts are commonplace. Also missing from the Bill is a provision to ensure that there is sustainable funding for free-to-use machines, which has seen serious strain recently. Providers must be compensated for providing this vital public service. Currently, we risk reaching a threshold whereby huge numbers of free ATMs become uneconomical and are forced to close. The funding model should also consider the demographics and economic deprivation in any area, which bears a strong relation to the need for cash access. The Bill could be an important step in determining safeguards on access to cash in the long term, but sadly what we see is a narrow set of proposals with a lot of detail still unconfirmed.”
“Admittedly, rates of withdrawing cash have fallen off a cliff in wealthier constituencies, but during the covid crisis, cash withdrawals fell by only a quarter in less affluent areas. That figure would only increase if the free ATMs that have been removed were all replaced, but not with pay-to use machines. With a regular fee of £1.75 just to withdraw cash from a pay-to-use machine, it is a luxury that many cannot afford, yet the Bill makes no clear commitment to protect free-to-use over pay-to-use machines. The latter understandably have much lower usage rates. I hope that the newly appointed Chancellor will instruct the Treasury to differentiate between them clearly in its cash access policy. We are also still waiting for the Government to define the meaning of “access to cash”.”
“Common charges include transaction fees of between 1% and 3% a sale, authorisation fees of between 1p and 3p a sale and merchant service fees of between 0.25% and 0.35%. Edmonton is one of the most cash-dependent areas in the country. I welcome the measures to empower the Financial Conduct Authority to ensure that designated bodies must continue to provide “reasonable access” to cash, as I do the powers to potentially stop the closure of certain cash access points if there is no alternative nearby. However, to truly address this looming issue, we must acknowledge that attachment to cash has been much stronger in more deprived communities. Along with age, that is the greatest factor in its continued use.”
“Those facing digital exclusion or physical impediments, who are disproportionately elderly, will continue using cash. I am not alone in saying this. The “Financial Lives 2020” survey found that around 2.4 million people aged 65 and over in the UK relied on cash to a great extent in their day-to-day life, representing around one in five—21%—of all older people. Also, small and medium-sized businesses, such as hairdressers, barbers and nail shops, survive off regular, frequent small cash transactions. I think about the small businesses in Edmonton, such as the nail salon or my hairdresser, Debbie’s, who did my hair for me— [ Interruption . ] Thank you. These businesses only take cash from customers. Small and medium-sized businesses simply cannot afford to run a card machine.”
“Thank you for calling me to speak in this very important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I associate myself with the remarks of my hon. Friends the Members for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) and for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra). I welcome the Government introducing measures to protect access to cash, and I will use my speech to express my constituents’ concerns about that. In Edmonton, between 2018 and 2021, a third of our free-to-use ATMs disappeared. I receive correspondence from my constituents telling me how the closure of banks and the lack of free ATMs is putting a strain on them. The importance of using cash on a regular basis is that it remains, for millions of people, simply the best way to budget effectively.”
“Q8. The Windrush compensation scheme was launched in April 2019. In the time since, we have seen this Prime Minister come and go. Meanwhile, just one in four applicants has received compensation so far, and sadly at least 28 have passed away without receiving compensation. Is it not about time for the Government to make the scheme independent of the Home Office, and finally provide justice to the victims before it is too late?”
“The Government’s offensive Sewell report sought to dismiss evidence of institutional racism in Britain, yet we know that systematic discrimination remains rife in the criminal justice system, such as the proportion of prisoners from ethnic minority backgrounds on remand. Will the Minister commit to publishing further progress updates on the Lammy recommendations so that the Government’s progress can be publicly held to account?”
“The Secretary of State has suggested that it would be unforgiveable for teachers to go on strike. What is unforgiveable is that teachers’ pay has fallen by a fifth in real terms in the past 12 years of Conservative rule. At the same time, they have been crushed under an unsustainable workload, hurting mental health and wellbeing. It is no wonder that seven in 10 have considered quitting in the past year. Will he commit to giving teachers the above-inflation pay increase they so richly deserve?”
“The Home Office must listen to Wendy Williams and the victims of this scandal. I urge the Minister act now to speed up the process.”
“At least 28 victims will never get the justice they deserve. For most, the process has been slow, lengthy and painful. Often, they are given few updates and have little to no under-standing of how their claims are progressing. Incredibly, only one in four applicants has received any compensation, and fewer than 7% of the 15,000 compensation claims the Government originally expected have been paid. For one of my constituents, waiting for a compensation offer took more than two years. In that time, he was forced into more and more debt. His son died tragically, having passed away in his sleep. While he was awaiting a decision, he was unable to even bury his son. His experience is not unique. In her progress report, Wendy Williams highlights the timeliness of compensation payments as one of the main concerns raised by those she consulted.”
“However, rather than delivering justice for victims, the scheme has been so mismanaged that it has become an extension of the scandal itself. In her 2020 progress report, Wendy Williams stated that her recommendations boiled down to three factors, including that the Home Office should open up to “greater external scrutiny” and recognise that migration policy is “about people” and “rooted in humanity.” It is clear that the compensation scheme has failed to meet those challenges, being described in the progress report by claimants as “traumatic”, chaotic, “very stressful” and a “game of back and forth”. The most notable failure of the compensation scheme has been the painfully slow progress of cases—so slow, in fact, that at least 28 people have now tragically died without ever having received any compensation offer.”
“They all suffered at the hands of a Government that dehumanised them as they tried to implement the hostile environment policy at all costs. They were British citizens who had been asked to jump over impossible hurdles to prove their status and, having failed to do so, endured incredible cruelty at the hands of the Home Office. Five years later, the media, some politicians and the Government have largely moved on, but many victims have been unable to, with only a small minority having received a personal apology from the Home Office or any compensation. Most of those affected by this terrible scandal are still waiting for any kind of justice. For most victims, the compensation scheme is the most visible response to the scandal and their path to a resolution.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered Wendy Williams’ Windrush Lessons Learned Review progress update. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship for the first time, Ms McVey. I will endeavour to keep my comments as brief as possible, but you know MPs find that difficult. I want to talk about Wendy Williams’ progress update following her “Windrush Lessons Learned Review”, published in 2020. More than five years have passed since a steady stream of constituents began approaching me who realised that they or someone in their family had been victims of the Windrush scandal. Some were from families who had been torn apart, with a father or mother wrongly deported. Others had been falsely imprisoned, lost their jobs and homes and were denied medical care and access to benefits.”
“Claimants who have lost out on potentially years of child benefit or working tax credit are only given just over £1,000—far less than the amount they were wrongly denied. If claimants were denied access to housing, they are given £1,000. Denial of education results in a one-off award of £500. I know of at least one incident in which the total compensation offered to my constituent was less than the total debt they had been forced into as a result of the scandal. How can that be right?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her powerful intervention, and I wholeheartedly agree. I urge the Minister to act now to speed up the process wherever possible by increasing staff numbers and simplifying the decision-making process. The victims of this scandal have been trapped in limbo for long enough. It is time to give them the resolution they are entitled to. Often, the scheme fails even the lucky few who have received an offer of compensation. The headline figures for compensation may seem like sizeable amounts, but they do not reflect the life-changing trauma that so many experienced. Wrongful imprisonment can lead to an award of just £300 per day of detainment. The headline figure for deportation is £10,000, but for administrative removal the amount drops to £5,000.”
“In conclusion, all these failings amount to a second trauma for the victims of the Windrush scandal. They continue to be treated inhumanely, being forced to navigate a compensation scheme not fit for purpose. The scheme has been too slow and does not provide a transparent, independent appeals process.”
“My constituent, Joel, who submitted a claim on behalf of his 89-year-old grandmother, spent 14 months going back and forth with the compensation scheme, repeatedly providing information and evidence that was requested time and time again, until suddenly, for no apparent reason, his caseworker stopped communicating with him. He feared that his grandmother would die without seeing a penny in compensation. My constituent’s grandmother, who lives in Jamaica, has now received notice that she has been deemed not in a position to be offered any compensation. Joel is an articulate lawyer, familiar with navigating bureaucracy, yet even he was unable to navigate the compensation scheme without my intervention. It is clear that the culture change called for in the lessons learned review has not taken place.”
“There is no external scrutiny of a process through which we hope to achieve some justice for the Windrush generation. I urge the Minister to make public the outcome of the compensation appeals process, publish appeal outcomes and work to make the process as independent from the Home Office as possible. Given the concerns I have outlined, it is clear that Windrush compensation is anything but rooted in humanity. In her progress report, Wendy Williams pointed to a lack of empathy on the part of the decision makers and said that caseworkers often fail to signpost vulnerable claimants to services that could offer non-monetary support. The claims are as complex as the humans making them and must be treated as such.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for that powerful intervention. I will pick up on that in my speech. I urge the Minister to ensure that the guidance issued to caseworkers on the levels of awards is urgently reviewed by the Home Office. The awards must reflect the life-changing trauma inflicted on victims of the scandal. Those who are not happy with their compensation offer are faced with a so-called appeals process that is neither truly independent nor transparent. Claimants can request a review of a decision by the adjudication officer, but ultimately the Home Office has the right to refuse a decision reached by the adjudicator. The Department is marking its own homework. Although the number of claimants who request reviews is published, we have no idea how many appeal results have led to increased or reduced offers of compensation.”
“The Windrush generation need us to step in for them now. The Windrush generation need us to ensure all the damage and everything that they have been through is righted. At this point, it has not been, which is an injustice. We must look at everybody as a victim and make a difference for them.”
“The Windrush generation and scandal is one part of it, but the hostile environment is overarching and overbearing. It dictates the way that the Home Office responds to people who are, let us be honest, very vulnerable. They need our support right now; they cannot wait. They have waited long enough. Unfortunately, we are where we are, which is why this debate is important. Claimants must be offered a complete package, not only guidance and advice. We also need the Department to reach out to those victims who have not come forward. I am not surprised they have not come forward if they have seen how those who have come forward have been treated. The Government must look at the damage they have done. They need to fix the compensation scheme or hand it to an organisation that can deliver it, and give justice to those who need it.”
“My hon. Friend will not be surprised that I agree wholeheartedly with everything he just said. Wendy Williams’ report highlighted the fact that Home Office policies are not rooted in humanity. They do not reflect a caring society; people who have lived here all their lives are no longer welcome by a click of the finger. We need to change that, and we are now in a position to do so. The Home Office is actually in a position to make a difference and a change, to help those people who need it now. There are so many people watching this, or stuck in the Caribbean or west Africa, who cannot get back into this country because they are not deemed British, even though they have lived here all their lives. In many instances, they actually have passports but cannot get into the country. We need to look at this wholeheartedly.”
“I ask the Minister to take the report as something that will only help, not hinder, the Department. Again, I thank everyone for their contributions. I want the Windrush generation to know that we will continue to speak up for them until justice is done. Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).”
“I want to thank everyone for their powerful contributions, for speaking up for the voiceless and for supporting the Windrush generation. The Minister will not be surprised that I am not happy with a lot of the things he said, based on the fact that Wendy Williams has made it clear that the Department has overstated the progress made and closed some recommendations prematurely. It shows that the report has not landed well and is still not being taken seriously. The scheme is too slow and victims are still waiting for compensation. Not until we see more victims getting compensation will the other victims who are not coming forward start to come forward. We need to look at the Department and understand why it is not working. Wendy Williams has made it very clear.”
“I am inundated with casework on a daily basis from constituents living in shocking conditions, facing problems with mould, disrepair and overcrowding that are seriously impacting their quality of life and mental health. There are more than 4,000 families on Enfield’s waiting list for social housing alone. How can the Minister justify fewer than 7,000 social homes having been built in England last year?”
“Those include: awareness training for all staff; risk assessments; and a confidential point of contact for women in their workplace for problems arising due to the menopause. Lastly, flexible working should be made the default for all workers, unless there are reasons why it is not possible. Sadly, the employment Bill was not included in the Queen’s Speech, which is a great shame for all workers —especially those who are going through menopause. Without that right, many workplaces will continue to fall short on making reasonable adjustments, and women will continue to feel their health suffer as they are forced to work hours that do not meet their health needs. These changes are a necessity if we aspire to have a truly equal workplace.”
“Workplace menopause policies should be made mandatory. Many employers already recognise the importance of bringing in a menopause policy, but need a little nudge. The Mayor of London announced City Hall’s policy on International Women’s Day this year, which Unison helped develop. That policy includes tackling discrimination and stigma around menopausal symptoms, as well as introducing temperature-controlled rooms and flexible adjustments to the workday to accommodate symptoms. Leading examples should be admired, yet progress remains too slow across the board and the best way to enforce minimum standards is by statutory change. Secondly, the Government should take a proactive approach to promoting best practice on workplace policies. The Government should work alongside the TUC, which has produced a series of recommendations for employers.”
“A study earlier this year by Koru Kids found that a quarter of women going through the menopause feel unhappy at the lack of support on offer. Many are likely to be the next workers to drop out of the labour market. While employees can claim some protection through existing legislation, such as the Equality Act 2010, clearly it is falling short. There remains no legislation which expressly puts obligations on employers to ensure they provide necessary adjustments for women going through the menopause. Therefore, I would like to make a few recommendations to the Government. First, legislation should be passed ensuring women going through the menopause are protected in the workplace in the same way that other protected characteristics are, such as those that exist around pregnancy and maternity discrimination.”
“That’s a barrier to all women.” Today I want to take this opportunity to look forward, based on my own experience, to how we can be better and more productive in the relationships between black women, GPs and advertising. All women need to be included in the menopause debate. Let’s be honest: if any other issue had been found to cause one million people to leave the labour market, cause problems with sleeplessness, anxiety, brain fog and countless other overlooked symptoms, and impose an unacceptable and unappreciated burden, then the tabloids would be in overdrive. It is a basic issue of equality in the workplace, and should be treated as such. There should be endless debates and significant Government legislation needs to be passed.”
“Do not get me wrong, there are some fantastic black and Asian British women who are raising menopause awareness. There is Karen Arthur, who runs the Menopause Whilst Black Instagram account; she also has a podcast where she shares black women’s stories of menopause. There is Dr Arif, the family GP who specialises in women’s health—she is a bit of a celebrity now. Dr Arif says: “NHS practitioners are not trained in menopause. They often don’t realise you can have menopausal symptoms during perimenopause, or have symptoms and still have your period. And that there’s no blood test that can reliably tell you if you’re perimenopausal as hormones fluctuate.”
“We need a wider discussion as a community, but we also need the media and health professionals to get involved, to reach out to us and to explain, “These symptoms appear at a certain age and if they do, this is what you should do.” The media and companies should be looking for black women to front their campaigns to ensure that women feel that there are relatable faces and voices. Yes, here we all know Davina McCall, but not everyone knows Davina—I should not say that; Davina might not be happy. On a serious note, when someone is young and looking up to people, they want to see faces that look like theirs—that is really important. If the Black Lives Matter movement showed us anything, it showed the globe that all lives matter. We should work together.”
“I also want to say that black women’s voices are less likely to be heard or shared in the media. Black women are less likely to appear in media campaigns. In the menopause landscape, we do not exist. We need to be heard. Our experiences are really important. The next generation need a reference point. As I said, in our community we are taught to be strong. Slogans like “Black Girl Magic” are associated with strength and glamour, against all odds, which is fantastic, but trying to live up to that all the time puts a lot of pressure on us.”
“That could be to have antidepressants, but in this instance it is to talk about HRT. That is something we do not do. I am standing up in Parliament to say, “Let’s talk about it. Let’s have that discussion. Let’s help each other and let’s think about the next generation, who will be able to say, there is the blueprint and these are the things that we should be looking for, and when they come up we will go to our doctor and have agency and have strength.” We should do that, rather than being quiet and thinking, “My mother never spoke to me about this and my aunties never spoke to me about it, so it must be something to do with my job or my partner or my friends or whatever”. It is something that is part of every woman, whether they are black, white or Asian.”