This week was the first Parliamentary week of 2022. After a decade of broken promises, betrayals of the British public, and their blatant disregard of Parliamentary duty, the British people urgently need the Tories to finally get their act together and govern in the best interests of the people, rather than their own.

Amongst so many more displays of recklessness and incompetence, 2021 saw the Government’s abysmal handling of the coronavirus pandemic continue, their shameful defence of a now former Tory MP’s serious breaches of lobbying rules, and the abundance of Government Christmas parties that took place during coronavirus restrictions in 2020 being revealed. Not what anyone could genuinely categorise as a successful year.

To add to this, the Home Secretary published the Home Office’s ‘record of delivery’- if it can be called this- shortly before Christmas. Unsurprisingly, this record was drastically incomplete. I took the opportunity to list some of the harsh realities of last year’s Home Office failures at Business Questions. These included:

• 10,000 fewer police officers under the Tories than in 2010.
• A woman is killed every three days in this country.
• Less than 1.5% of reported rapes are prosecuted.
• Prosecutions overall have plummeted.
• Tens of thousands more criminals getting away with crimes.
• Recorded violent crime and antisocial behaviour up.
• Hollow words to Windrush victims, 95% of whom have not received compensation, some have passed away while waiting for the compensation they so deserve.

This Tory Government is soft on crime, and soft on the causes of crime.

I had hoped that this year would be different, with the Tories finding a new respect for democracy and the British people; and yet, not even a week into the year we have already had the Prime Minister claiming that the Warm Homes Discount is £140 per week, when in fact it is only £140 per year. Energy prices continue to rise with millions of households bearing the brunt of policy failings, experts predicting that they will continue to soar, and pressure grows on the Prime Minister from his own benches to cut VAT on energy bills. Country-wide, many are feeling the pinch of an influx of price rises making everyday costs unmanageable under this Government’s watch.

Avid followers of Business Questions will know that I have been calling on the Leader of the House of Commons-  Jacob Rees Mogg – to tell us where the hugely important Online Safety Bill is. This week, he announced a General Debate on this, yet still no legislation has been brought forward. We were initially promised that this would be completed before Christmas 2021, but this has been rolled back further and further, until now all we have is the vague commitment that it will be brought forward at some point in this session. This just isn’t good enough.

Although my Shadow Cabinet role prevents me from speaking in the Online Safety Bill debate next Thursday, I will be sure to follow it closely, and encourage all with an interest to do the same.

I urge the Government to use this year to clean up their act, stop their callous wasting of taxpayers’ money, and to serve and protect this country. The people of this country deserve much more than this. The Government has lost its grip, and once again working people are paying the price.

You can view this week’s Business Questions here and see my Twitter thread by visiting @ThangamMP.

On Friday, we heard the heart-breaking news that our colleague Jack Dromey MP had died at age 73. Jack was a brilliant campaigner, a fantastic colleague and a dedicated constituency MP. He was a supportive husband to Harriet and a fantastic father to Harry, Joe and Amy. We are all devastated by this loss.