As you may have seen in the local news, yesterday the trustees of the MG Rover trust fund visited the Acorns hospice in Selly Oak to officially present Acorns with a donation of £23,000.
This comes at the end of the long and sad saga of the trust fund set up for former MG Rover workers when the company collapsed in 2005.
Last week, The Report on BBC Radio 4 looked at our rail system – including the delays and cancellations of London Midland train services we have seen in the West Midlands in recent months.
I was interviewed for the programme, which you can listen to online here. The section on London Midland starts at 14.45 minutes in.
Northfield and North Pole. They both start with ‘North’. You would think that is about the limit of the similarity between my constituency and Santa’s home. Not this year. For two days just before Christmas, Northfield High Street was dominated by a giant inflatable snowman. Across the square, complete with snow machine creating a not-too-cold blizzard, were two Christmas scenes. One even broke...
Thank you to all the local schools who took part in this year’s Northfield Christmas Card Competition.
Congratulations to 10 year old Eboni Green from St. Brigid’s Catholic Primary School for designing the winning image (left) in my constituency Christmas competition.
Long term unemployment remains stubbornly high in Birmingham and the government’s Work Programme is not lifting a finger to help.
The Labour Market Statistics for November 2012 were published yesterday.
Last week saw an end to the long and sad saga of the MG Rover trust fund.
It is now more than seven and a half years since the Phoenix Four made their promise to set up a trust fund for former MG Rover workers, when the company closed in 2005.
After seven and a half years of waiting, the money – initially anticipated to be in the millions – has never appeared.
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.