Letters to the Editor: Mick Whitley MP responds to Queen’s Speech

Dear Editor,

With the Queen’s Speech today, the Government had the opportunity to deliver the change that our country so desperately needs as it recovers from the pandemic. Instead, they failed to deliver for the people of Birkenhead and showed that their promises to “level up” the country just aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

As our NHS struggles to cope with record high treatment lists and massive staff vacancies, the Queen’s Speech today should have contained an ambitious recovery plan that set the health service on confident footing during the difficult years to come and gave health workers the pay rise they truly deserve. But today’s speech failed even to mention the much-needed social care reform that the Prime Minister promised was “already prepared” two long years ago.

Meanwhile, even as the pandemic has exposed how vulnerable many people are in the workplace, the Government have failed to stamp out despicable fire and rehire tactics and seem to have given up on the long-promised Employment Bill entirely.

Instead, the Prime Minister is intent on driving through discriminatory voter ID laws that risk disenfranchising millions of young, BAME, and marginalised voters – a shocking indictment of his priorities.

During tomorrow’s debate in Parliament, I look forward to calling for the bold and transformative action that my constituents deserve – from standing up for private tenants and investing in a new generation of social housing, to fixing our broken social care system with record new levels of investment and a major pay rise for carers, and taking dramatic action to combat climate catastrophe through a green industrial revolution that would breathe new life into Birkenhead and create thousands of the high-quality green jobs that my constituents deserve.

Yours sincerely,

Mick Whitley MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA