A video of my speech to Progress Annual Conference, on Saturday 12 May.
Making rights a reality for disabled people. The right to health; to be skilled and knowledgeable; to be able to work if you can; to have a roof over your head; to live free from fear of attack; to have a family; to be part of a community; to be able to move about; to have aspirations for the future.
Iain Duncan Smith should be supporting disabled people who want to work hard and get on, but instead he has the unbelievable arrogance to accuse them of doing nothing more than sitting around and occasionally putting the kettle on. With…
This out of touch Government should stop tinkering around the edges and take decisive action to get people back into work. They should start with Labour’s five point plan, including a Real Jobs Guarantee.
Nick Clegg likes to brag that he warned the Cabinet about the youth jobs crisis in January last year, but his words haven’t got a single young person into employment. Instead, the number of young people out of work for over a year has more than doubled whilst his government failed to produce any alternative to Labour’s successful Future Jobs Fund.
There are now fewer people coming off benefits and into work than at any time since 1996 and it could not be clearer that the government’s beleaguered Work Programme is simply not doing the business.
Hard working families will be absolutely staggered to learn that they are next on the Chancellor’s hit list.
So I hope that in this year we can begin to debate how we go back to the Beveridge’s first principles and ask ourselves
How is it that we can apply those ideas – and those ideals – to the changed world of the 21st century?
A full list of factories proposed for closure
The Welfare Reform Bill has been law for just a week, and the government’s first callous act is to throw hundreds of disabled people straight on the dole.
Today I met with Transport Secretary Justine Greening to demand a government re-think on plans to block 6,500 inner city jobs.
Yesterday I met with Lord Heseltine to ask him to help ensure a Birmingham mayor is given the powers to get the city back to work.
If elected mayor, I will work with the Chinese Government to radically extend the Study in China programme to allow Birmingham students to strengthen the bond between Birmingham and China.
Our police are doing a great job keeping down crime by 4pc this year – but I want a Birmingham mayor to help lead a tougher fight against criminals, especially drugs and organised crime gangs.
With over 50,000 unemployed people in Birmingham, Labour today launched its ambitious plan to this city moving again.
Just after I made my announcement that I’d stand for mayor yesterday, I was straight off to Bordesley Green to go and see some of the results of a huge campaign against drugs and drug-dealing. This has been the the…
I’m announcing today that if the city votes yes for a mayor, then I will seek to be Labour’s candidate for office. I want to use every skill I have, and all the passion I can bring, to make Birmingham the place we all know it can be.
One of our big campaigns over the last few years has been to win two fantastic new health centres – on the Bromford and Firs, and in Alum Rock. Now the centres are up and running the job is make…
We need far more determination from this government to get our young people into work. The cost of youth unemployment for the city over the next 10 is an incredible £625 million. That’s why we’re taking action locally. Recently I…
On Friday 2nd March Liam Byrne MP brought together the city’s Work Providers to ask how the city could redouble its efforts to get young people back into jobs. The Hodge Hill MP, who represents the constituency with the highest…