This week is Living Wage Week and the Living Wage Foundation announced that the UK Voluntary Living Wage is to rise to £8.75 per hour for those working outside of London. The Voluntary Living Wage is independently calculated from research into what people in the UK need to get by. Unlike the Government’s re-branding of the National Minimum Wage to the National Living Wage – which is £7.50...
Welcome to my latest Parliamentary newsletter. This covers local issues and developments as well as my actions in Parliament. You’ll find updates on children centres, World Mental Health Day and other issues. As ever, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me on these or any other issues. Best wishes, Richard In Birmingham Northfield Children’s Health and Wellbeing services Earlier...
Voting has now opened for all the projects that have applied to the Aviva Community Fund, including a number of local charities and community groups in the Northfield area. The Aviva Community Fund awards funding of up to £25,000 for local community projects across a range of categories. To vote for local projects in Northfield, click on the following link to find the projects that have applied...
I am very sad to hear that Derek Robinson has died. He was part of a very different era in the UK motor industry. However, I would caution against over simplistic or one dimensional accounts of why there was so much strife at Longbridge and elsewhere in the 1970s. Both management and unions of the time carry their share of responsibility for the problems that the industry faced back then and both...
Government cuts to public services are bad enough but it is even worse when investment is approved for projects, only to then be delayed and threatened through unnecessary bureaucratic wrangles. That, however, is what is happening on the Bournville Village Trust College Green development on the site of the former Bournville College on Bristol Road South. A new Health and Wellbeing centre is...
Birmingham Airport are proposing to change two of the flight paths into the airport and have informed me that some parts of the Harborne, Selly Oak and Weoley areas could be affected. The Flight path is called MOSUN and you can see the areas affected via this link to a map provided by the airport . More information on the new flightpath and the consultation documents published by the Airport can...
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.