As you may have heard, the national Boundary Commission has been reviewing the numbers of Councillors there should be on Birmingham City Council in the future and the boundaries of the areas from which they should be elected to represent. Those areas are known as “wards” as I am sure you know. I wrote an article recently for the Bromsgrove Standard, but I wanted to write another piece to tell you …
Yesterday I met with a number of student representatives to show my support for their opposition to the government’s student finance changes. The Tories have said they will be completely cutting the availability of maintenance grants to students, effective from September 2016. These maintenance grants are in place to support students from the poorest backgrounds and more than half a million …
Welcome to the latest issue of my Animal Welfare Round-Up, where I regularly update you on some of the causes I have recently been taking action on. You can read my previous issues here.
The Dog Meat Trade
Towards the end of last year, a number of constituents contacted me about the dog meat trade in Asia.
Laws under which Israel arrests and detains children in the Occupied Territories are different depending on whether a child is Palestinian or Israeli. That is inexcusable. It is just over four years since I wrote a Huffington Post article about Palestinian children in Israeli custody and the conditions to which they are subject to. As I said then, it is shocking when you hear about some of the …
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 …
The lights are up and anticipation is building for Christmas Day. And so I thought for my final article of the year it would be an apt time to be thankful and recognise the role of community in the area and the importance of standing up for Bournville College’s future. At the very heart of communities up and down the country are local schools and colleges. Bournville College is of course at the …
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.