To describe the Government’s twists and turns over the way our Police are funded as a shambles would be putting it charitably. That was the message from an emergency statement where the Police Minister was forced to apologise to the House of Commons today. Confused? You should be. It would all be comical if it wasn’t so serious. But it is serious. Very serious. It is about nothing less than the …
On Monday I was at the Birmingham launch of Living Wage Week 2015 where the new rate for the Living Wage outside of London was unveiled - rising from £7.85 per hour to £8.25 per hour. When I say "Living Wage", I mean the real one - a figure produced from independent research into what people in the UK need to get by. It's not about luxuries. It reflects the real cost of living taking into account …
Under changes introduced by the Government, thousands of people across Birmingham and West Mercia could lose their right to vote unless they individually re-register. The registers with the largest predicted drop off tend to be in urban areas with a high incidence of multiple occupancy housing, regular home movers and large numbers of historically low propensity registering voters. According to …
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 …
Following the recent VW scandal, EU Member State representatives agreed on 28th October at Technical Committee to tighten EU emissions testing rules – and then appeared to give open-ended permission for cars to breach the EU’s own limits by 50% in real live driving conditions.
Welcome to my Animal Welfare Round-Up, where I regularly update you on some of the animal causes I have recently been campaigning on.
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.