This week I listened to David Cameron set out his ‘One Nation’ Queen’s Speech for ‘working people’. After having heard him deliver it, I’m not convinced that the Prime Minister quite understands what either of those phrases mean.
Earlier this year it was revealed that the Northfield constituency has the worst record in the country for low pay. Over 50% of people in this area are paid less than the living wage of £7.85 an hour – reaching up to 63.1% for women. As I said at the time, it is an absolute scandal that over half of local working people are not being paid enough to provide properly for themselves and their...
I am very concerned with the huge amount of money that big companies avoid paying in taxes. This is not just a problem here in the UK but across the world. Countries are losing billions each year and the impact of globalisation has made it ever more difficult to pin down dodgers. The UK tax code is very extensive and technical. The loopholes which companies exploit are technically legal and when...
Millions of people in this country are struggling on low pay at the moment. The economy may now be recovering – but it is the slowest recovery the country has seen in a hundred years and I know that many people in the Northfield area just are not feeling the benefits of it all. People are on average £1,600 a year worse off since the Conservative-led Government was elected in 2010. Far too...
Today is ten years to the day since the collapse of MG Rover in Longbridge. Like other people who live around here, I will never forget the scenes at Q Gate at the plant on the morning of 8th April, 2005. 6,000 people lost their jobs. But it wasn't only that loss that was devastating. The collapse affected whole families, and the community here that MGR had been at the heart of for so long.
April 2015 will mark ten years since the collapse of MG Rover in Longbridge. I know people around here will never forget it. When the company closed in 2005 six thousand people lost their jobs and were left utterly exposed. But the impact went beyond those workers – the collapse affected whole families, and the community that MGR had been at the heart of for a century. This week I secured a...
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.