I am very concerned with the huge amount of money that big companies avoid paying in taxes. This is not just a problem here in the UK but across the world. Countries are losing billions each year and the impact of globalisation has made it ever more difficult to pin down dodgers. The UK tax code is very extensive and technical. The loopholes which companies exploit are technically legal and when …
Community leaders in Northfield have joined together to co-author a response to the tragic events last week (Friday 24th).
Read it here: Northfield community response – 20 April 2015
Millions of people in this country are struggling on low pay at the moment. The economy may now be recovering – but it is the slowest recovery the country has seen in a hundred years and I know that many people in the Northfield area just are not feeling the benefits of it all. People are on average £1,600 a year worse off since the Conservative-led Government was elected in 2010. Far too …
Lots of local residents have written to me with their concerns about shale gas extraction – or fracking.
Firstly, I am absolutely clear that shale gas extraction – or ‘fracking’ – should only go ahead in the context of robust regulation, comprehensive monitoring and strict enforcement, and in a way which is consistent with decarbonising our electricity supply by 2030.
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Today is ten years to the day since the collapse of MG Rover in Longbridge. Like other people who live around here, I will never forget the scenes at Q Gate at the plant on the morning of 8th April, 2005. 6,000 people lost their jobs. But it wasn't only that loss that was devastating. The collapse affected whole families, and the community here that MGR had been at the heart of for so long.
I was Labour Member of Parliament for Birmingham Northfield between 1992 and 2019 and a former Shadow Transport Minister. I now chair Healthwatch in Birmingham and Solihull, and the West Midlands Board of Remembering Srebrenica. I also work as a public affairs consultant. I am an effective community advocate and stakeholder alliance builder with a passion for human rights. I am a trustee of the Balfour Project charity and of Citizens Advice Birmingham, and a former Chair of Medical Aid for Palestinians.