I was delighted to start the new Parliamentary term by joining 300 early years practitioners at the Newham Early Years Conference. It was inspiring to be in a room full of people committed to giving every child the best possible start in life. the best start in life.

I was delighted to be able to talk about Labour’s ambition to reform the early years sector to deliver high quality childcare and early year years education that works for children, parents and early years professionals.

2023 is the 75^th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks. This year, as we celebrate the enormous contribution the Windrush Generation has made to our local community, it is vital that we continue to fight for justice for everyone affected by the Windrush Scandal.

The Home Office has responded painfully slowly to Wendy Williams’ Windrush Lessons Learned Review. Just 8 recommendations have been fully implemented, more than four years since the review’s publication, and reports now suggest the Home Secretary plans to abandon many of the commitments made in response to the Windrush Scandal.

These is a shameful betrayal of the Windrush Generation and their families. Today I asked the Minister to confirm whether her government is still committed to the full review>>

Disastrous decision making at Royal Mail has led to chaos across our local postal system. I have been contacted by hundreds of my constituents who are waiting for urgent post and parcels ahead of Christmas.

The problems are particularly acute in SE22. Ever since Royal Mail closed the Silvester Road delivery office in 2018, SE22 residents have faced endless disruption to their postal services. Royal Mail’s management have refused to take any responsibility and instead repeatedly blame striking workers, despite these issues starting more than four years before the current strikes.

Postal workers have served the public tirelessly throughout the pandemic, often acting as a lifeline for isolated residents unable to leave their homes. They are now facing a real terms pay cut in the face of soaring inflation and being forced into changes to their terms and conditions at a time when Royal Mail is giving over £567m to its shareholders.

I stand in solidarity with our postal workers.  Today, with local councillors in SE22 where the problems are particularly acute, I have written to Royal Mail to urge them to remove the threats to staff terms and conditions and to reconsider the disastrous closure of the SE22 delivery office.  I have written separately to Royal Mail about the problems in other postcode areas that local residents have contacted me about in recent weeks.  You can read both letters here>>

Staff across our NHS will be working 24 hours a day over the holiday period to provide care and treatment for everyone who needs it. 

This is the hardest winter ever for our NHS.  No-one in our NHS wants to strike, but the refusal of the government to negotiate in good faith has meant that nurses and ambulance staff have felt that they have no other choice.

NHS staff deserve all our support, and I want to say thank you this Christmas and New Year to everyone working in King’s College Hospital, the Maudsley Hospital and in community-based services for all that they are doing.  Thank you NHS!

Childcare is a huge pressure on the cost of living for families with young children.  It is clear that our current childcare system does not work for parents or childcare providers. Costs for parents have risen by an eyewatering £2,200 since 2010, whilst thousands of providers every year are being forced to close. Many families are paying more for childcare than they spend on their rent or mortgage and for the first time in decades the number of women leaving the workforce to care for family is increasing.

Childcare is basic infrastructure – vital to family life, children’s start in education and economic growth – but the Conservative Chancellor was completely silent on this issue in his budget statement last month.

Labour would be taking action now to address the cost and availability of childcare. We are committed to build a system which supports children and their families from the end of parental leave until the end of primary school, starting with fully funded breakfast clubs in every primary school. You can see my speech from today here >>

Twelve years of Tory mismanagement have seen NHS dental services eroded across the country, and increasing numbers of dental practices are taking the decision to stop providing NHS services altogether.

Yesterday I raised this issue with the Secretary of State for Health.

I have been contacted by many of my constituents who are struggling to access dental services on the NHS and simply cannot afford the costs of private treatment.

I will be meeting with NHS England later this month to raise my constituents concerns.

Thank you to everyone across Dulwich and West Norwood who responded to the Boundary Commission for England’s consultation on draft proposals for new Parliamentary Constituency Boundaries earlier this year.  

As you may know, the initial proposal was to split the current Dulwich and West Norwood constituency between four new constituencies, with all of our cross-borough communities being represented by multiple Members of Parliament.  There was a wide consensus that this proposal would have been bad for our area, and I’m grateful to the hundreds of local people and community organisations who made a very strong case to the Boundary Commission that they needed to think again. There were over 400 submissions from Dulwich and West Norwood focused on the impact on communities including West Norwood, Herne Hill, Gipsy Hill and West Dulwich.