Are park gates more important than the sick and disabled?

At Enfield Borough Council’s meeting on November 19, Tory opposition councillors voted against my motion that we discuss the Government’s mismanagement of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

Councillor Neville, leader of the Tories, stated that they would vote against taking my motion early because they wanted to debate their motion on park gates, which they believed was more important.

A discussion on parks is important. The Tories, however, tabled four other motions ahead of their parks motion.

While Cllr Neville and his troupe postured about the importance of park gates, there are people in Enfield who go to sleep wondering how they will feed their children. They worry about the money on their prepaid gas meter, how much longer their toothpaste will stretch and if they will ever pay off their high interest pay day loan.

Some of them have been shoved into poverty because of Tory failures on ESA. Our motion highlighted their plight. They have been wrongly refused ESA and endured the limbo of an indeterminate process. Already vulnerable because of illness and disability, their children are plunged into poverty, too, and Enfield has the highest number of children living in poverty in London.

There were attempts to lambast us for not giving statistics on Enfield. Well, quite frankly, the statistics don’t paint the true colours of human suffering and the indignity that comes with sudden income loss. The shame of having to prove your incapacity and to parade your poverty cannot be understood through numbers and figures.

The Tories wanted evidence of significant numbers affected in Enfield and we were accused of making political points. As politicians, we have a clear political message with one profound statistic – one soul suffering in Enfield is one too many.

The park gates debate has been aired in every ward forum, in every local paper, in every residents association and in the council’s overview and scrutiny. The Tories’ motion attempted to reverse what they had already agreed to – a consultation.

Perhaps we could spare a thought for those in Enfield who have been crushed by regressive and brutal Tory policies.

Cllr Claire Stewart

Lab/Southgate Green Ward