Articles about ‘Communities’
Feb 22
GOVT MUST RETHINK CUTS TO ILLEGAL LOAN SHARK CRACKDOWN TEAM
Today I asked the Chancellor at PMQs about the England Illegal Money Lending Team – based in Birmingham.
The England Illegal Money Lending Team is national organisation which investigates, prosecutes and supports victims who have fallen into the clutches of loan sharks.
The scheme has helped over 24,000 loan shark victims. It costs £3.6m to run but has got £63million of illegal debts written off. Spend £3.6m to help some of the most vulnerable people in the country being ripped off to the tune of £63m? That sounds like good value for money to me. But, as Christmas approaches and loan sharks get hungrier to fleece people who have little money to buy family Christmas presents, the Illegal Money Lending Team faces losing a third of its budget due to Government cuts.
WINTER ADVICE AND SUPPORT
With winter and colder weather on the way, I want to encourage everyone to take advantage of available help, support and techniques for keeping energy bills low and heat efficiency high.
There are a number of schemes available which you may be able to benefit from.
NORTH WORCESTERSHIRE GOLF COURSE – UPDATE
A resident living close to North Worcestershire Golf Course wrote to me last week to tell me that he had seen a copy of a recent letter from the Management Committee of the Club saying that they intend to close the Club with effect from March 2016.
The resident who wrote to me asked if this meant that the land at the Golf Course will definitely now be redeveloped for housing. This does not automatically follow and I thought it would be useful to update residents generally via Facebook with my understanding of the current position.
This is an unfair education policy
A number of constituents have been in touch recently with various concerns about the UK Government’s policy towards further and higher education.
Students, teachers and parents in Birmingham are rightly angry. The Government’s is scrapping University maintenance grants for the poorest students, rewriting the terms and conditions of student loans, and now there are concerns over Government proposals to create a Birmingham super college and close existing institutions.
