Dear James,

Please pay over the money agreed for house building.

We have a housing and homelessness crisis in our region. Homelessness is soaring and we are building affordable homes so slowly it will take until 2052 to clear waiting lists for council waiting lists. But when the West Midlands Combined Authority was set up, ministers agreed £211 million to build new homes. Only 1% of this money has been paid over.

Birmingham
and the Black Country falling behind the rest of England on key economic
indicators

Birmingham and the Black
Country (the local authority areas of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and
Wolverhampton) are falling behind on
key economic indicators such as prosperity, productivity, employment
and skills, according to a new report.

Let me start with the argument for a Bill of Data Rights. Every so often we have to try to democratise both progress and protections. In this country we are the great writers of rights—we have been doing it since Magna Carta.

We want Britain to be the world’s leading digital economy – and that means we need world-leading digital infrastructure.

Across Europe the centre left is in trouble.

Speech to Bath University, Monday 2nd July 2018
Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP

DOWNLOAD HERE

Thank you very much for inviting me to speak today. It's a great pleasure to escape the turmoil of the capital for the calm of your campus, for a discussion about what lies ahead. Not in the hours to come. Or the weeks to come. But in the years ahead.