Geraint Davies GC Report - Jan 2022

GERAINT DAVIES MP

WELSH LABOUR & CO-OPERATIVE MP MAKING A DIFFERENCE FOR SWANSEA WEST O Abertawe ac yn gweithio dros Abertawe

JAN 2022 REPORT Report Inside

GOVERNMENT ACCUSED OF PLAYIN RUSSIAN ‘ROULETTE’ WITH DVLA STA

The Government has been accused of playing “Russian roulette” with the safety of fectious Omicron variant of coronavirus rages around Swansea, after claims that people who can work from home.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the DVLA has had 1,700 staff who have tested p taken measures to ensure 2,500 of its 6,000 staff have been able to work from home. Bu and workers’ trade union PCS feel that is not enough, and say they feel there should working to ensure the safety of more staff. There is currently 45 or fewer staff members

Geraint Davies MP said ““Obviously we all accept some work has got to be done at t more people, the less social distancing, amidst a continuous eruption of Covid, even th cron is not as serious to your health.

“Even though management agreed a system with the union PCS of more home workin infection rates were again surging, the Government again has intervened and this is of state for transport Grant Shapps has intervened to stop civil servants from the depa sense precautions to keep people safe and to give them confidence and give them peac ity. It is playing Russian roulette with the latest variant. We’re now in the situation whe have had coronavirus at the DVLA (over the course of the pandemic) is at 1,700.

“Thankfully, because of vaccination, we are not seeing death of the scale we saw before Government and in particular Grant Shapps, with the endorsement of Boris Johnson now, is placing fast and loose recklessly with people’s safety.

“I guess they take the view that, oh it’s alright, in all probability if they do get Omicro to work, but the truth is, some people are more vulnerable than others and some peo members who are more vulnerable than others.

“It’s wrong from a management point of view, a business point of view, and from a hum risks with the workforce.”

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PM LIES: 506K FEWER AT WORK, NOT 420K MORE

f DVLA employees as the init has limited the number of

This month I took the opportunity to call out the Prime Minister persistent lies on job figures as a result of the pandemic.

positive for the virus, and has ut Swansea MP Geraint Davies be more investment in home s who have the virus at present.

Speaking in the House, I said “Madam Deputy Speaker. The Prime Minister persistently tells the country, through the House, that 420,000 more people are at work than pre-pandemic, but the Office for National Statistics shows that 506,000 fewer people are at work—the Prime Minister excludes the self-employed. Will you and Mr Speaker ensure that the Prime Minister uses accurate figures, to ensure that there is trust in the Government and that we realise that there are half a million fewer people at work, rather than 420,000 more?”

the office, but the issue is, the hough they are claiming Omi-

ng at the end of last year, after the second time the secretary artment introducing common ce of mind to boost productivere the amount of people who

e, but I think the attitude of the n, who I’ve raised it with twice

on, they’ll survive and go back ople are in contact with family

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Labour is the only party that can and will tackle the cost of living crisis and lead the recovery that Britain needs, just as Welsh Labour are doing here in Wales.

MP wants all clubs to have body scanners and every reveller searched to deal with spiking An MP has called for drastic measures to be taken to protect clubgoers from being spiked - suggesting everyone should be searched and scanned before entering the premises.

Geraint Davies MP has called for his constituency of Swansea to lead the way in the fight to clamp down on people having their drinks spiked or being injected with needles whilst at nightclubs, an action he says is always taken to “rape or rob” victims.

He feels this can be delivered by an enhanced scanning and searching process on entry to the premises and the upgrade of CCTV facilities. It comes as nightclubs look set to reopen in Wales from Friday, January 28.

Last October, police began investigating a number of reports of spiking in Swansea, after claims circulated about a number of young women falling victim to the crime in Wind Street.

Among them was one 25-year-old who shared a photo of what happened to her after she was reportedly spiked while on a night out in Uplands.

Swansea MP Mr Davies said: “The reports I have had from the student union and others shows there are dozens and dozens of these spikings in Swansea alone, and there is a concern they are not always taking seriously enough by bouncers, by the health authority, by police officers which assume people are drunk, when in fact they have been spiked either in their drinks or physically with a needle.

“Having had private meetings with a number of victims, and then got involved in a big protest that we did going around Swansea outside the clubs, what we want to see is more action to protect victims and to look after them and to chase down and punish perpetrators.

“In particular, we want to see more searching and scanning at the entrance so that we can detect any needles or drugs that have been brought in. There are detectors which people can walk through but there are also ones which involve a wand that can detect smaller items like quite small needles, not the ones a lot of people will imagine. We’re looking at all over scans but also scanners which are basically handheld wands and physical searches as well.

“We want better CCTV, these days you can get high resolution CCTV, even in low light. We want a situation where if people, women in particular, say they have been spiked between certain times in a particular club, that there is a facility to take that CCTV to try and identify who’s responsible and resources should be put into that.”

Left: Geraint Davies protesting against `spiking with Swansea students

Mr Davies even suggested that disclaimers should be signed by people on entry to clubs.

He said: “My view is we want to move to a situation whereby when people enter clubs and that they provide proof of age and identity, they leave that identity and sign a disclaimer saying that if there are criminal events that occur that CCTV will be looked at and they give their consent to that, and that would allow the people responsible to be hunted down and arrested.”

DON’T MAKE PROTEST A CRIME XR, BLM RALLY OUTSIDE PARLIAMENT Speaking at the Extinction Rebellion and BLM rally against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, I said “There has been a lot of talk in the media, hasn’t there, about garden parties and this is really a cloak of cover for more dastardly that is happening here today - the removal of all our democratic rights to peaceful protest.

“Peaceful protest has been an agent of change throughout history, whether it is the suffragettes, peace campaigners, climate change protestors, individuals that want to stay in the EU or trade unions, it is fundamental to our democratic process.

“I don’t know where the Trade Union movement is, because frankly this Bill will destroy the right to picket as well, but it’s good that we’re here in so many numbers because this campaign needs to go on and on and on.

“The truth is that what this Bill actually says is that if there is a prospect of inconvenience of noise disturbance, business discontinuity, the police should have the right and indeed the duty and the power to intervene to stop it.

“That means in terms of businesses and pickets they can just move straight in so we need to stop that.

“I chair the All-Party Group on Democracy and Constitution and we looked at a report on what happened in Clapham, in terms of Sarah Everard and in terms of the protests against this Bill in Bristol, and what as you expect, we found was that the police’s action there was disproportionate and their intervention undermined public health in the case of the vigil for Sarah Everard.

“In the case of Bristol, again obviously the police are supposed to be there to protect property and life (what this Bill would do is give them the power to intervene and disperse people just for having a protest), and they overreacted in that case.

There was cases of blading - the use of shields to hit protestors who were sat on the ground - and we found that was disproportionate and we believe that the police should go back to the founding principles of Robert Peel, which is that the police are the community and the community are the police.

“It’s about consent, it’s not an executive arm of an authoritarian regime to infringe upon our democracy.

“The best thing that could happen to this Bill is to be thrown in the dustbin of history, but minimally what we’ve done is to move an amendment to say that there should be a duty on the police to facilitate peaceful protest as part of our democracy.

“The police should be part of the agents of democracy, not part of the oppression of democracy.

“Finally, I would just say this. People will have heard of Aneurin Bevan, the founder of the Health Service. Aneurin Bevan said that what happens in politics is there’s a struggle between the interests of property and poverty; and during that struggle property will attack democracy, because democracy is the only way that we can have what we need and what we want.

“As millions of people are going hungry, as million of people can’t pay their bills, 500,000 less people in work, we need to be going out protesting, voting and getting mobilized.”

Geraint Davies MP speaking at the Kill The Bill Rally in London

MEASURES NEEDED TO SUPPORT DURING COST-OF-LIVING CRISIS Speaking in the Commons, I stated: “The Minister will know that the UK was found to be in breach of the human rights of people with disabilities by the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. He will know that some 7 million people live in food insecurity and food poverty in Britain. In Wales, we earn only 70% of the UK average, so thousands of vulnerable people in Swansea have been hit by this. Will he ensure not just that those people are paid, but that payments are made to charities for disabilities, and that we look again at universal credit uplift and perhaps a universal basic income so that the poorest do not continually fall through the net during the cost-of-living crisis?”

PM HAS SHOWN CONTEMPT OVER COVID PARTIES The Prime Minister has demonstrated a contempt to the public over the many lockdown parties that took place in No. 10 during lockdown.

In the House of Commons this month, I raised the issue stating “At the time of the No.10 Downing Street party, people in Swansea, Wales, could have faced fines between £60 and £1,920 for holding similar events. Does that not show the respect that the Welsh Labour Government have for the public health of their citizens in contrast to the contempt that the Prime Minister has for the public health of citizens here? Given that he must know whether he was at the party, why will he not simply say that? Why should we wait for an inquiry to find out what he already knows? Why is he hiding the truth?

CONTACT ME / CYSYLLTU A MI 32 Walter Road, Swansea, SA1 5NW (01792) 4759432

info@geraintdavies.org.uk @GeraintDaviesMP