Welcome to my latest Animal Welfare Round Up and the first one of 2017. I continue to receive emails from constituents about a number of issues around animal welfare. Here is what I’ve been doing on the issues you’ve asked me to raise. Kitten and Puppy Breeding This has been the most popular campaign issue among constituents in the last two months. Sadly, kittens and puppies are often …
Welcome to my latest Parliamentary newsletter, which gives me the opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Christmas is a time for us to not only look back on the past year, but also to look forward to the New Year, the challenges we face and the changes we might want to make in our own lives. For me personally, 2016 will always be remembered as the year my …
In recent weeks, I have received petitions, postcards and hundreds of other correspondence relating to funding, services and reorganisational threats facing our National Health Service. This is the response I have written to constituents. Many of you will recognise that for the last six years Labour have warned about threats of a funding crisis and an increase in unnecessary private investment …
I have received a huge number of emails and letters about Brexit in recent weeks and months. I wanted to share with you all the response I have sent out to constituents on Brexit and the way forward. As you may be aware in the weeks after the referendum, I wrote an initial response to the defining and far reaching challenges Brexit brings for our country. If you have not a chance to read it, much …
Below you can see my contribution to the Boundary Commission public consultation in Birmingham last week. You can have your say too here. I am grateful for the opportunity to provide some observations on the Boundary Commission’s provisional recommendations for the West Midlands and specifically for Birmingham. Introduction – Legislative Framework By way of introduction, I know that …
Let’s get one thing straight at the start. Thursday’s High Court decision did not change or overrule the result of June’s Referendum which voted for Britain to leave the European Union. I know that claiming something else makes for more lurid tabloid headlines but it is a fact. The High Court decision is about who should have a say in how Britain should go about leaving the European Union, not …
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.