The events in Burma have shocked lots of us in Birmingham - so this week 157 MPs came together in Parliament behind a letter to Boris Johnson, coordinated by Rushanara Ali MP, demanding pressure on the Burmese government to stop the violence and start the humanitarian relief. You can find the letter here.
One way to think about today's 'crisis of the West' is to look at the economic growth rates in economically and politically 'free' versus 'unfree' nations. If you believe that economic and political freedom are linked (as I do), you would assume that free countries grow faster. For much of the post-war era that has indeed been true. But no longer.
Our community is one of the poorest in Britain and over the summer I am updating my research into the causes of poverty and low income.
I am looking for people to interview who have a household income of £13,000 a year or less.
The telephone interview will be strictly confidential and will be undertaken by my senior researcher Erik Cummins. It will take about 30-45 minutes.
My comment piece to mark the launch of the English Labour Network can be found here.
New figures produced by the House of Commons Library reveal that Birmingham's National Health Service (NHS) is being short-changed by £56 million every year compared to other parts of the country – and the shortfall is set to rise to over £70 million by 2020.
The figures which show how much the Birmingham NHS (known as Birmingham CrossCity CCG) is funded for every person in its area.
Recently, I received an email from a constituent who invited me to an International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) event next week on Tuesday. Unfortunately, due to prior parliamentary commitments, I will be unable to attend the event.
I submitted the following question to the Home Office asking for details of Government plans to stop the spread of extremist material through social media:
"To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans her Department has to introduce legislation on technology companies preventing the publication of extremist material."
I received the following response from Rt Hon Ben Wallace MP - the Home Office Minister responsible for security:
I submitted the following question to the Ministry of Justice asking for details of the number of individuals convicted of terror-related offences due for release from UK prisons:
"To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners in UK jails were convicted of offences under the Terrorism Act 2000; and how many of those prisoners may be scheduled for release in the next (a) six months, (b) year, (c) three years and (d) five years."
The £1 billion deal Theresa May has struck with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is leaving the West Midlands massively short-changed. I asked the House of Commons Library to dig into the figures and our analysis shows Northern Ireland will get £244 per head compared to £13 in the West Midlands – that’s more than 18 times as much funding.