Nadia on... the new Labour government

Here we go again. Thanks to the votes of 19,494 lovely people, I’ve been re-elected as the MP for Nottingham East. It remains my greatest honour to represent our city, which I love so much. I’d like to give my heartfelt thanks to all LeftLion readers who supported me and the Labour Party - and to those who didn’t, but keep reading my columns anyway. That’s also appreciated.

Things have changed here in Westminster. Two-thirds of Tory MPs are gone. More than half of the Commons is now made up of new faces, and I’ve got over 300 new names to learn. But most importantly, for the first time since my early teens, we have a Labour government.

Over the past fourteen years, we got used to every budget or major speech being full of bad news; the only question was what kind. Which of our public services will face cuts this time? Which of our fundamental rights are about to be eroded? In what ways will people’s lives become harder than they’d been already?

When we gathered to listen to Labour’s first King’s Speech, setting out the government’s plans for the coming years, the difference was apparent. I won’t pretend that I agreed with every announcement, or that there weren’t policies that I was disappointed not to hear. However, hearing the long list of bills that we can expect in the near future, it was hard not to feel a sense of relief, and hope for the opportunities which a more progressive government opens.

The Tories falsely claimed that we must choose between acting on the climate crisis and addressing the cost of living, and then did neither. That’s why I was pleased to hear a concrete, pragmatic plan to tackle both: with a publicly-owned energy company that will invest in homegrown renewables, which are not only the cleanest, but also the cheapest available form of power.

More of our transport network also will be taken into public ownership. Learning from the success of NCT’s publicly-run buses, local communities across the country will be enabled to take control of their bus networks. Rail services will be gradually renationalised as well, as private contracts expire. Hopefully this will end the absurdity of people often paying more for a train to Edinburgh than they would for a flight to Barcelona.

We were also promised a significant uplift in workers’ rights: a ban on exploitative zero-hours contracts, an end to ‘fire and rehire’ practices; the right to parental leave, sick pay and flexible working from day one and reversing attacks on the right to strike. A new bill on race and disability equality will help address pay discrimination.

There are other areas where I’d like to see us go further. I’m glad that the government acknowledges the benefits of services run for the public good rather than private profit. I believe this should extend to other key utilities, such as water. Last year, the CEO of Severn Trent made more than £3,000,000, despite the company causing over 60,000 sewage spills. Nationalisation could put an end to such scandals, while helping keep down our bills.

I’m also happy that a ban on no-fault evictions - promised by the Tories but never delivered - is back on the agenda. However, this alone won’t stop tenants being pushed out of their homes by unaffordable rent hikes. That’s why we need measures to control rent increases, alongside a mass programme of building affordable homes, and council housing in particular.

Finally, we need to see decisive action to address the scandal of child poverty, which had reached record levels during the final months of Rishi Sunak’s government. In Nottingham, 40% of children now live in poverty, a major driver of which are Tory welfare policies.

The two-child benefit limit (which prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for more than two children) affects one in six kids in our city. A damning recent report by the Child Poverty Action Group has found that 93% of impacted parents say it makes them less able to afford food. As I said in my first speech of this Parliament, his cruel policy belongs in the dustbin of history, and I’ll fight within the party to get it scrapped as an urgent priority.

These policies, of course, come with a price tag. However, despite the economic mess that this government inherits, there’s still plenty of money in this country - just concentrated in the hands of the few. The richest 1% of Britons have more wealth than the bottom 70% combined. To address this injustice, and fund the anti-poverty measures we desperately need, we should be looking at taxing their enormous wealth. For example, taxing capital gains (profits derived from selling investments) at the same rate as income could raise more than £16 billion a year - 4 to 5 times more than the cost of ending the two-child limit. That’s another argument I’ll keep making in Parliament.

However, what the next five years looks like won’t only be shaped by what happens in Westminster. There is only so much that an MP can achieve on their own. Real change happens when people organise for it, not only inside Parliament but outside of it too.

Under the last government, a lot of activists’ time and energy was, inevitably, spent firefighting: protesting against one bill or another, often to limited effect. Now, with a government that might be more willing to listen, we have the opportunity to demand something better.

Politics is far too important to be left to politicians. If you want to see a future that’s fairer, greener and more equal, now is a great time to get organised and campaign for it.

nadiawhittome.org