DESPITE the huge wealth in our country it remains deeply shameful that millions of children are growing up in poverty, and many of them are in working households.

For too many in Oldham it doesn’t seem matter how hard you work, or how many jobs you work, it is incredibly difficult for some families to make ends meet.

Something has gone drastically wrong if we as a nation are prepared to accept that. It would make us a shadow of the nation that we can be, Britain can be better than this.

This week has laid bare just how destructive a lost decade of Tory austerity has been on our welfare state; a safety net which often doesn’t catch people when they need it most.

We should never have had to find ourselves in a situation where during the school holidays families were reliant on the generosity of their community.

And I am so proud of our community this week, the outpouring of people desperate to help has been fantastic,from our business community facilitating donations of food, clothes and other important items, individuals making donations and volunteering their time and to the community groups across the borough who have been organising and co-ordinating to make these efforts as effective as possible. You will always have my gratitude for the spirit displayed this week.

Throughout my week out with Mahdlo decent and hardworking people came to our collection points across the borough, some of them still in their uniforms, some of them with their children as they had no childcare options. I also got the opportunity to see first hand the amazing work of Reel CIC, the Salvation Army and FareShare.

As we got to the end of the week, we saw the government perform one of its classic u-turns. After spending two weeks arguing that a national lockdown was not in the national interest the government suddenly saw sense.

Had they listened to their own scientists and backed Keir Starmer’s call for a circuit break in the middle of October we could have had a shorter lockdown with less disruption and made better use of the school holidays.

Now, kids are back at school, and the lockdown will be weeks longer than originally proposed, further damaging our economy and prolonging the isolation many will feel.

It is so important that the rules on lockdown are followed and that we all continue to follow the advice to prevent the spread of the virus.

If we don’t bring down infection rates quickly more people will be hospitalised and more people will die.