‘A very busy couple of weeks’ - Kate Osborne MP reflects on PMQs and the Budget

It’s been another very busy couple of weeks since my last column. We have had the first Labour Budget for 14 years, yet another new Conservative Party leader and across the pond, Donald Trump winning the US Presidential race.

Yesterday, this week's Tory Leader had her first-ever Prime Minister’s Questions - it was predictably appalling.

She spent her first question cheerleading for Trump, made incorrect assertions about Defence spending and showed no shame when challenged on her awful comments on children with Autism - claiming people diagnosed with autism get “economic advantages and protections” - or her stance that Maternity Leave Pay was excessive! 

Those appalling comments, as well as vilifying children with SEND, are wildly inaccurate - my casework inbox is inundated with parents unable to get support for their children in school or at home, parents waiting years for appointments for assessment and diagnosis.

In the Budget, Labour announced £1 billion extra funding for SEND provision in schools - this really shows the difference between a Labour Government that will invest in our communities and the Tories who would have continued attacking them. 

In terms of Maternity Pay - women need more support not less! Pregnant then Screwed have helped more than 300,000 women who have faced workplace discrimination once pregnant - it is one of many reasons I am proud that our Labour Government’s New Deal for Workers will increase protections in the workplace.

This week, I made a contribution in the Chamber welcoming Labour’s Budget and said how proud I was that our first-ever Woman Chancellor, whilst making history being the first woman to deliver a Budget, honoured a true hero of our constituency - Jarrow's ‘Red’ Ellen Wilkinson.

Ellen was a remarkable politician and trailblazer for women everywhere.

It is about time we had some recognition of Women in Parliament, and I'm so pleased that we now have a fabulous picture of Ellen on the wall in Number 11 Downing Street! 

Labour’s Budget shows that we are a Government that will work for the people, there is a lot to celebrate from the largest-ever increase in Carer’s Allowance, closing the loopholes on Inheritance Tax, additional funding for Further Education, increasing the National Minimum Wage, investing in breakfast clubs, cutting draught Beer Duty, to the record investment in the NHS, a huge 8,500 jobs from the investment in Crown Works through the North East Combined Authority, 500 million increase for roads maintenance and to fix potholes, to investing £3.4 billion more into the Warm Homes Plan, to ensuring former mineworkers get the money that was kept from their pensions - all things that are hugely important to people in Jarrow and Gateshead East. 

Another issue I was incredibly pleased to see us tackle was the setting aside of funding for the contaminated blood scandal and for the victims of the Horizon scandal - something I have long campaigned for with Boldon resident Chris Head.

There is always more to be done and I will continue to work with Chris and the Post Office Scandal campaigners to push for people from the Post Office and Fujitsu to be held to account for their role in this scandal as well as to push for a speedy resolution to the outstanding claims.

This week we also announced an inquiry into why these payments have been so delayed - it is appalling that people have been waiting decades for justice.

If you watched any of the Budget debate you would have been shocked by the speeches from the Conservatives - you would think from some of their contributions the last 14 years never happened - when the reason our public services are at the point of collapse, is the reason we have no youth centres left, the reason we have crumbling school buildings, the reason our NHS is in crisis and the reason they crashed the economy is because of their gross incompetence and deliberate mismanagement putting their cronies over the people of this country.

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Of course, I wish we could have done much more, I wish the Budget had been able to lift the two-child benefit cap, I wish we would have been able to right the injustice for the WASPI women, I wish we could have increased the Pension Credit threshold and I wish we would have been able to invest more in our Local Authorities and I wish we hadn’t increased Tuition Fees - yet let me be very clear, the reason we cannot do any of that is entirely down to the Conservatives and the mess they made of our country.

Finally we can move on from 14 years of Conservative destruction of our communities - this was a Budget where the poorest households gained the most, and the wealthiest pay the most - it shows the difference a Labour Government can and will make for the people.

This weekend I will be attending Remembrance events across the constituency, honouring all those who served in our Armed Forces and paid the ultimate sacrifice to defend our freedoms.