The Tories talk a good game about “levelling up” but they have spent this week talking down to people in the North and the Midlands.
My constituents and people right across the North are rightly furious that Number 10 sources have been briefing newspapers about plans to impose further restrictions on our communities without bothering to tell the people and businesses affected or even consult local leaders.
Ministers in Westminster are treating millions of people across the North with contempt.
This week we need a plan to get control of the virus and restore public trust.
That starts with clear communications and daily press conferences, not opaque briefings to journalists.
More than 100 days since local lockdowns began, the PM Minister can still not tell us why areas go into lockdown, or how the restrictions can be lifted.
Nor can he properly explain why different restrictions are being imposed.
And he has no explanation for why local lockdowns aren’t working, why infection rates are soaring in the areas that have had further restrictions in place for months or what his plan is to get a grip of the situation.
Labour want local leaders to be in the room when decisions are being taken, so they can have the intelligence they need to help reduce the rate of infections.
People shouldn’t have to pay the price for the government’s failure and incompetence.
The proportion of contacts being traced fell to a record low earlier this week, and only 1 in 4 people taking in-person tests are receiving results within 24 hours.
That is why we need the PM to fix the testing system and put it in the hands of local councils who know their areas best and have a 97% contact tracing success rate.
Labour has been clear that communities and businesses in local lockdown need support to get them through winter.
If London was going through what people in the North and the Midlands have been experiencing over the past month, the Conservatives would have done something about it.
By cutting these communities adrift the Government’s failure and incompetence will turbo-charge the already huge North-South divide.
