‘Today people are dying for lack of access to GP and health services. Parents go without food themselves so their children can eat and have heat. Our elderly huddle in unlit and unheated homes, afraid to turn the radio for company on let alone the stove for sustenance,’ Liz Harvey told councillors debating whether to join other councils in declaring a Cost of Living Emergency.
Harvey told councillors gathered for their December meeting: ‘It is an active choice of this government that the children, the sick, the elderly, the vulnerable, the poorest in our communities, those least capable to defend themselves that are the ones to suffer. These groups are hardest hit by the rampant inflation and skyrocketing fuel costs which are the consequence of this government’s mismanagement of our economy and its critical national infrastructure.
Now a prominent political powerhouse in Herefordshire, Liz Harvey became motivated to become a councillor in 2011, when first aware of council service cuts concerning to her family. She is now one of six local women elected who now sit on the council’s executive of eight – all passionate about how social equity is linked to the delivery of services. Harvey spoke for them all when she said:
‘Today as a local authority we have well over £100m less core funding each year for Herefordshire services than in 2011,’ Harvey said. ‘And since 2016 successive Conservative governments have determinedly driven this country over a cliff economically, whilst deregulating and asset stripping to the benefit of their benefactors and to the detriment of our health services, our environment, our rivers, our safety – remember Grenfell, our energy security, our food security, our education, our transport and our communities – the list is long.’
‘And it is a tragic fact that these groups are also those most heavily reliant on the services councils provide … the services cut already almost to the bone and facing further threat in 2023.’
Speaking about the Coalition working politically to transform politics in Herefordshire in 2019 – against a backdrop of social, environmental and economic crises, Liz Harvey said: ‘Since 2019 this progressive administration has worked to reinvigorate this council with new expertise and new perspectives. With no end in sight to the government’s austerity campaign we have taken action to sustain the services that do remain by transforming the way services are delivered, to enable our communities to be better able to help themselves as the scale of social poverty gets progressively worse, to respect the value and importance of our parishes and support them to expand in their ambitions and grow their capabilities to strengthen at least our democracy and partnership working at the most local of levels.’
‘Alongside these defensive and pre-emptive actions we – like all other councils – have been faced with finding massive savings as the public sector has continued to be squeezed by Westminster.’
Calling for political unity in the council to, supportthe motion, Harvey said: ‘In the past I can quite understand why some members previously in administration might have struggled to challenge such repeated failures of their own party in government. But hopefully now – with all that has happened in government in recent months, the double digit inflation, the fuel prices, the waste, the lies, the PPE scandals, the tone-deafness, the unfairness, the incompetence – all members will feel able to get behind this administration’s call for action, short term financial support and kept promises.’
