Under changes introduced by the Government, thousands of people across Birmingham and West Mercia could lose their right to vote unless they individually re-register. The registers with the largest predicted drop off tend to be in urban areas with a high incidence of multiple occupancy housing, regular home movers and large numbers of historically low propensity registering voters. According to...
When the West Midland comes together, we can get results. That is the message from recent changes to the way the Government allocates funding for Policing across different parts of the country. West Midland Police has already been hit hard by government cuts of over 20% in the last five years. On top of that, however, there were real fears that our region could be hit even harder in comparison to...
West Midlands Police have announced a plan to close 28 police stations across the region. In and around the Northfield area, Kings Norton, Longbridge, Warstock and Bartley Green are scheduled to close. Although nearby Bournville Lane will continue to be the Police headquarters for the area, these proposals mean that there will be no police stations in Northfield constituency itself by the end of...
Last Friday (18 September) I hosted a ‘Superfast Summit’ in Kings Norton, where I met with senior officials from Virgin Media, BT, Digital Birmingham and alternative providers, to discuss the problem of superfast broadband not-spots in the constituency. Many of you will be aware - or have even got in touch with me – about my campaign on poor broadband coverage. I have estimated around 1500 homes...
This week Parliament returns from its summer break. One of the first things I will be doing in Westminster is leading a debate on funding cuts to West Midlands Police. In the last five years West Midlands Police has received funding cuts twice that of other forces according to the independent National Audit Office. Whereas the West Midlands has been cut by nearly a quarter (23%), Surrey Police...
Last month a large gathering of Labour Party Members and Supporters met to review the lessons of the recent elections, and to work out how best we can move forward.
Before we broke into four workshops (see below), I opened the event with some personal reflections on the election and on the future. Read my notes here.