I am glad that my hon. Friend’s constituency has organisations like those in mine.
Organisations have popped up in response to covid, such as the mutual aid groups, and existing organisations such as Burgess Sports and Pembroke House have extended their activities to help feed families. They all deserve community gratitude, but they have worked so hard because the Government have created and then ignored the need for help—a Government headed by a man who apparently cries himself to sleep because he is now receiving only £150,000 a year. Well, boo hoo!
I want to end by talking about a real injustice. This year, children have largely, thankfully, escaped the worst health effects of covid, but they have not been spared the economic impact on their parents. In Bermondsey and Old Southwark, unemployment has jumped by 5,000, many parents are still prevented from working and we face the cliff edge of the end of the furlough scheme, which has helped 24,000 people in my constituency alone. Children feel the injustice of that situation. The Government have a genuine chance to act today—mindful, I hope, of the 300,000-and-growing signatures on Marcus Rashford’s petition.
I will finish by quoting Charles Dickens, who, of course, lived in Southwark. In the 1860s, he wrote “Great Expectations”, in which he said:
“In the little world in which children have their existence, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.”
It is injustice that we vote on today. MPs can allow an injustice to occur or we can vote to prevent an injustice from being done to children, through no fault of their own. I know how I will be voting—I will be voting to end injustice.
5.36 pm