My five pledges for Peterborough

• Keeping communities safe

• Fight fly-tipping

• Standing up for our schools

• Saving our NHS

• Homes for the many

Keeping communities safe

There are 21,000 fewer police on our streets since the Tories took power in 2010. I hear every day from people across our city who have been the victims of crime, and know that this is a problem with one clear solution; put more police back on our streets.

During my by-election campaign, I spoke to someone on the doorstep who had been burgled – he called the police only to be told he needed to report it online. No one came to take fingerprints, a statement or to reassure him that this crime was being taken seriously. This sadly is becoming more and more common.

The truth is that the Police are having to prioritise what crimes their limited resources can deal with.  This is not the fault of the Police, it is the fault of a government that puts cuts ahead of public safety.

In fact, across Cambridgeshire £27 million of government funding for the police has been cut since 2010. At the same time crime has shot up, with violent crime up by an astonishing 76% between 2015 and 2018.

It’s clear where the blame lies, with a Conservative Government that puts austerity ahead of safety.

If re-elected as MP I will be fighting for a Labour Government that has committed to putting 10,000 bobbies back on the beat. Crime in Cambridgeshire fell by 29% under the last Labour Government, if you elect me I’ll fight to make this a reality again.

We all deserve to live in a society where we feel safe and able to go out without fear of being a victim of crime. If you re-elect me as your MP, I will continue to fight the Tory Government for fair funding, and hold them to account for their failings. Between our Tory Government, Tory Council, and Tory Police and Crime Commissioner, Peterborough has become a crime hotspot. As your MP, I pledge to put a stop to this.

Fight fly-tipping

The Tories have spectacularly failed to keep our city clean. Streets are covered in litter, fly-tipping blights our public spaces, and estates across Peterborough have been left in a chronic state of disrepair. In fact, Peterborough has been revealed as having the third worst fly-tipping rates in the country and being the fourth worst city for littering. There are very few places in Peterborough where you can go without seeing signs of a council that simply doesn’t care.

Now the Tory Council’s latest budget proposals want to cut the non-hazardous fly-tipping service so that response times are a week instead of two days. They are not taking it seriously, but as your MP, I would.

We need to put some pride back into Peterborough and stop the rot on our streets. Fly-tipping alone has doubled in the last five years, but the number of fines issued by the council is lower than ever before.

As your MP I will hold the Tory Council to account, and making sure they do the job the people of Peterborough elected them to do. We need more money spent on street sweepers, proper fines for fly-tippers, and more CCTV to catch them in the act. On top of this, we need a proper bulky waste collection service and repairs carried out to council owned properties and footpaths across the city.

Elect me and together we can start cleaning Peterborough up from day one.

Standing up for our schools

Children in Peterborough are being badly let down and held back from achieving their full potential by a government who care more about privatising our education service than providing our children with a good education.

Our teachers are under enormous pressure due to government cuts. Some schools in Peterborough have lost nearly £500 per pupil under the Tories. It is no surprise then that Peterborough consistently ranks poorly in national league tables, coming second-from-bottom nationally in Year 6 SATs results for the last three years. Teachers don’t go into teaching for the money, they do it because they care about our children’s futures, but the pressure the government has put them under has them leaving in their droves.

During my time as your Member of Parliament, I have fought to introduce statutory guidance on school uniform costs. How is it acceptable or fair that a school uniform can cost hundreds of pounds? This is what parents asked me time and again during my by-election campaign this summer. In one recent case in Peterborough, adding a logo to the school’s trousers has increased the cost by 75%.

According to the Children’s Society, nearly two million children currently go to school in badly-fitting, unclean, or incorrect clothing, while one in ten families reported getting into debt over school clothes. This is why I want to introduce legislation that will ensure that school uniform costs don’t leave struggling families by the wayside.

As Peterborough’s MP I will continue to fight for a properly funded education system to improve educational outcomes and ensure all children can reach their full potential. I will bring together a forum consisting of Headteachers, school governors, parents and council officials to discuss a plan for improving outcomes in Peterborough, and will campaign relentlessly to ensure our voices are heard in Parliament.

Saving our NHS

Our NHS is under threat from the Tories. Despite Boris Johnson claiming that the NHS is ‘off the table’ in post-Brexit trade talks with Trump’s America, the majority of the public do not trust him. This isn’t surprising, as it has been revealed that his government have already engaged in secret meetings with US drug companies as part of trade talks.

Over the last nine years, the Tories have cut our NHS to the bone. Patients, doctors and nurses are all suffering due to the austerity imposed on our health service. They have not protected the NHS while they have been in government, and I do not trust them to protect the NHS from Donald Trump and US drug companies in the future.

If re-elected as your MP, I will continue to fight back against the privatisation of our health service. I have already voted to safeguard our NHS from being sold-off to US corporations. The Tories voted against it.

My pledge to you is that I will fight for proper funding for our NHS, free prescriptions, an end to hospital car parking charges and increased funding for mental health services.

Homes for the many

Housing is an issue we desperately need to tackle in Peterborough. There has been a nearly 50% rise in the number of people sleeping rough in the last eight years and we see this across our city. We have people sleeping in St James’ Arcade, shop doorways, and in tents; all of this as a direct result of Government policy. Many young people are sofa surfing and families made homeless are being housed in hotels and B&Bs, often out of town and as far afield as Doncaster.

There is a clear solution to this, building more affordable homes. But this is something the council is simply failing to address.

Demand for social and affordable housing is immense, so much so that the Tories in Peterborough changed the criteria for who is eligible to be on the housing waiting list, to decrease the numbers from over 9,000 to just over 3,000. This is not a solution to the housing crisis.

On top of this, much of the housing we have for those on low incomes is of poor quality. Whether through private landlords or social housing, companies’ standards of accommodation are falling whilst rents go through the roof. I will be continue to be an advocate for capping sky-high rents and regulating against dodgy landlords. We need more homes in Peterborough, but we also need to make sure the ones we have now are truly fit for human habitation.

As someone who grew up with the stability and security of a council house, I understand the value of a secure, affordable roof over your head. If you re-elect me as your MP for Peterborough I will make it a key priority to implement practical solutions to the housing crisis.  I support a national programme of council house building and hope we can take lessons from other councils around the country that are tackling this issue head-on. Together, we can build the homes Peterborough needs, improve the quality of our current housing, and reduce the homelessness that we see across our city.

If you like the sound of my ideas to build a better Peterborough please get involved in my campaign.