How Labour party politics has changed

With Keir Starmer taking over leadership, the focus is on unity.

By Seema Malhotra MP

Labour Member of Parliament for Feltham and Heston and Shadow Minister for Employment

They say a week is a long time in politics. If ever it was true, it was the week before Easter. In this week, Jeremy Corbyn gave his final message as Labour Leader. Keir Starmer was elected as the new Labour Leader with 56 per cent of the membership vote on the first round, double the votes cast for his nearest rival. He moved swiftly to appoint a new shadow Cabinet and shadow front bench, a revitalised team to reflect the diversity, and breadth and depth of experience across the country. And prime minister Boris Johnson was taken into intensive care. Many were shaken by the seriousness of his illness, waiting each day for good news. There are times when party politics are put to one side, and this was one of them.

What strikes me is how quickly politics has changed, in the Labour Party and in the country. Labour’s new front bench team has been focused driving forward on COVID-19 related issues daily with our government counterparts. Our parliamentary party more united than I have seen for years. Through lockdown our work continues. Every day I, along with other MPs of all parties, take part in a morning call with the Cabinet Office, raising casework and policy concerns from the complexity of business support, to how the self employed are to be helped, care homes needing PPE or banks making it difficult to take mortgage holidays. We also urgently need to know how many are dying of COVID-19 outside hospitals, so we know the full extent of the crisis. As MPs, we have been inundated with COVID-19 casework on top of our normal caseload – including 55 constituents stuck in seven countries and on a cruise ship.

My team is not unusual in taking little time off over Easter and working weekends. We know it’s important because timely help matters, whether it’s help getting your medicines or a hot meal, or support to stop your business closing. But how we reduce the impact on the economic wellbeing of the country and families and restabilise after the immediate health crisis is going to be critical to stopping the second wave impact of COVID-19 – on people’s income and wellbeing. I am proud to be asked by Keir Starmer to take on the role of shadow employment minister in our shadow DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) team. But I am under no illusions that the challenge is enormous. Preserving jobs will be key to recovery, and to a decent and sustainable one at that.

Shadow Secretary of State for DWP Jonny Reynolds MP highlighted other issues in an interview last week. The pandemic has underlined a ‘two-tier’ system of employment in this country, meaning some people are able to work from home with no drop in pay, while others are left struggling to cope. He also highlighted that a huge priority for Labour in the longer term would now be cutting child poverty, which last year had risen to over four million.

Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) in 2013 highlighted child and pensioner poverty fell significantly under Labour, but the rise since has been relentless. Statistics from the Children’s Society show that almost a third of children in the UK live in poverty – that’s around nine in the average classroom. Two thirds of those have at least one parent in work. Children from Black and minority ethnic groups are more likely to be in poverty: 45 per cent are now in poverty, compared with 26 per cent of children in White British families. Many of those children also have no access to laptops or broadband to study – which is why we have started through our local education charity Hounslow’s Promise a project to get local donations of computers for kids.

And with over a million people having applied for Universal Credit in the last month, many for the first time after being laid off due to the coronavirus crisis, there will be new challenges. A recent piece in the Guardian highlighted how benefits experts are warning that people may be surprised to learn how little it pays and how difficult the process can be.

For a new party leader and team to take on such a role in the midst of a national crisis and with parliament also on lockdown will not be an easy task. It requires us to work as much as possible with the government to help get us through the crisis as soon as possible, but to also continue to bring the scrutiny the country needs so that the best possible decisions are being made, and implementation issues are addressed urgently. It also means we need to push for what we know is needed and which the government have yet to do – including a clear exit plan from lockdown that doesn’t bring the dangers of a new wave of the virus.

There is a lot to now learn from other countries, and we need our government to work much more internationally on how to control the virus and safeguard all our citizens. I have already seen a change, as has the country, in how Keir has brought seriousness and credibility to the role that the Labour Party must play – and the country so desperately needs to play, particularly during these challenging times.

The Hounslow’s Promise ConnectingKids@Home project https://www.hounslowspromise.org/connectingkidshome.html