In Birmingham Northfield New Engineering Centre at Bournville College I was privileged to recently open the new Engineering Centre at Bournville College. With state of the art equipment to teach the practical, hands-on skills that employers are always looking for, the centre will initially offer students the opportunity to acquire qualifications from Level 1 to level 3 with potential for...
Richard Burden MP, Chair of the Britain-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group, has responded to the decision of the US administration to to end funding to UNWRA. Mr Burden said today: “The action taken by the US administration to end funding to UNRWA is appalling and threatens the security of millions of Palestinian refugees. Many of the refugees living in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan...
All the evidence suggests that the terms on which Britain leaves the EU will be of key importance to jobs and living standards of people in the UK for many years to come. The stakes are particularly high for the automotive industry which is an industry on which hundreds of thousands of jobs up and down the country depend on. It is also an industry that brings in £77.5 billion every year in...
This month the Government released its Brexit White Paper which sets out the sort of relationship the UK Government wants with the EU after Brexit. It has taken over two years since the referendum for the Government to reach the stage where it can attempt to agree a position on the basics of our future relationship with the EU. However, the White Paper has unravelled within days with Cabinet...
The action taken yesterday by the Israeli Knesset is discriminatory and formally creates a two-tier system of rights within Israel. It formalises as second-class citizens any non-Jewish community, particularly the 20% of the population who are Palestinian Arabs. The new law also allows for the creation of communities based on religion, something that raises worrying parallels with apartheid...
By Richard Burden Originally published by Labour List, July 18, 2018 Strictly, meetings of the Parliamentary Labour Party are meant to be private. There has, however, been so much media commentary based on leaks from the meeting that I want to set out a few things to hopefully provide some additional perspective. The main item for discussion at the Parliamentary Labour Party this week was how...
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.