On Wednesday I joined a cross-party delegation of MPs, City Council leaders and business representatives from Birmingham to meet with the Prime Minister. We wanted to talk to him about some of the challenges Birmingham faces – and also the opportunities they present. Issues like how we attract inward investment, how we build the transport infrastructure our region needs, how we develop skills and...
This week Parliament rose for the Summer recess. At the end of the week, schools in Birmingham break up for the summer too. But some of them do so not knowing what the future will look like come September. Over the past few months, I have been trying to get to the bottom of what is happening in relation to the Department for Education pressuring a number of primary schools in my constituency to...
Thank you to everyone who submitted their views to Labour’s policy commission looking at the future of housing in Birmingham. You can read our report online here. We received evidence from a wide range of people and organisations both locally and nationally. This evidence was very helpful in framing the ideas and perspectives which the policy commission put forward as part of the Birmingham...
Yes, I am a Labour MP. I want to see Labour take control of Birmingham Council on Thursday. I reckon Albert Bore and his team could do a much better job than the Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition which has been in charge for the last eight years. But Birmingham does not only need a shake up of who runs the City. We also need a much more fundamental shake up in how it is run. That’s one of the...
Birmingham has a number of primary schools on Michael Gove’s ‘hit list’ for conversion into academies.
It’s sometimes difficult to find out exactly which they are. Not surprisingly the schools themselves are reticent to have such information published. You can understand their fear of being stigmatised as ‘failures’, even though they will not necessarily have done anything to warrant being on it.
Last week I spoke in a debate organised by Politics in Brum about whether or not Birmingham should have an elected mayor. I am sure there will be many more such debates over the next six months as we move towards a referendum in May 2012 to ask the people of Birmingham whether or not they want an elected mayor. These next six months provide an important opportunity to address some fundamental...
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.