The systemic injustice of low-pay and poor working conditions in the NHS needs to end.

Many NHS trusts and hospitals, including Homerton hospital, depend upon low-paid workers and outsourced agency staff in order to remain financially solvent. This is unacceptable.

The Government needs to step up and fund the NHS so that poverty pay and poor working conditions are not baked into funding models.

Every person working in a hospital – from cleaners to doctors – face an increased risk of catching COVID-19; they all deserve to be paid a wage they can afford to live on.

This week the Government has announced an easing of restrictions and licensing rules but it’s doing nothing to help local residents and councils left to clean up the mess. Local parks are fast-becoming mass beer garden free-for-alls with people urinating and defecating wherever they see fit and leaving behind mounds of rubbish. This must stop. And Government needs to help foot the bill for the policing and clean-up operations.

Already in Hackney, we’ve had pubs selling takeaway alcohol. This has caused scenes of havoc in places like London Fields with mounds of rubbish, urination and defecation. 

Hackney Council is on the case but the Government must get a grip and address the practicalities around the easing of restrictions.

The Government must also understand the cost to local taxpayers of the clean up and stewarding. The extra cost needs to be paid by the Government to protect already stretched local services.

This week the Public Accounts Committee discovered that the Government never considered the economic effects of a pandemic during its 2016 pandemic preparations. It explains the many gaps in support, including for the forgotten freelancers, and why it is lurching from crisis to crisis. 

I welcome Marcus Rashford’s excellent campaign shaming the Government into a U-turn so that vulnerable children do not go hungry over the summer. 

I’ve been raising concerns about the gaps in Government support for freelancers and the self-employed for months. Instead of just “reflecting” on these concerns, the Government needs to step up and act now.

I’ll keep pressing the Government on this.

I’m continuing to receive an unprecedented number of emails supporting Black Lives Matter. Thank you. We need to turn this anger into action and I look forward to working with you on how to create lasting and meaningful change.