In the last month my team and I have referred about the same number of people to the foodbank for assistance as we did in the ten months before that. By Richard Burden Originally published by HuffPost, 24 December, 2015 Last week, I called in to say hello at Northfield’s local Trussell Trust foodbank. Back in the Commons I always hear Government ministers talk about Britain’s strong …
Today I asked the Chancellor at PMQs about the England Illegal Money Lending Team – based in Birmingham. The England Illegal Money Lending Team is national organisation which investigates, prosecutes and supports victims who have fallen into the clutches of loan sharks. The scheme has helped over 24,000 loan shark victims. It costs £3.6m to run but has got £63million of illegal debts written off …
With winter and colder weather on the way, I want to encourage everyone to take advantage of available help, support and techniques for keeping energy bills low and heat efficiency high.
There are a number of schemes available which you may be able to benefit from.
A resident living close to North Worcestershire Golf Course wrote to me last week to tell me that he had seen a copy of a recent letter from the Management Committee of the Club saying that they intend to close the Club with effect from March 2016. The resident who wrote to me asked if this meant that the land at the Golf Course will definitely now be redeveloped for housing. This does not …
A number of constituents have been in touch recently with various concerns about the UK Government’s policy towards further and higher education. Students, teachers and parents in Birmingham are rightly angry. The Government’s is scrapping University maintenance grants for the poorest students, rewriting the terms and conditions of student loans, and now there are concerns over Government …
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 …
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.