Our Cinema
I have heard from a handful of constituents about a conspiracy theory spreading that our cinema could be torched - I would like to put these rumours firmly to bed.
However I do understand that local people are worried about the vulnerability of the site being empty so I have been in touch with West Midlands Police about extra patrolling around the vacant site so that it is free from anti-social behaviour.
I share the frustrations of everyone who just wants to see our cinema open again.
I am eagerly waiting to do a site visit very soon together with local councillor David Pears and I am applying the necessary pressures with Empire Cinema so that we can see some progress.
I have worked extensively with Empire Cinemas for a positive outcome and I continue to be optimistic that we will sort this out. I will report back again once I have visited the site.
My meeting with Gracechurch Centre manager and OCS
I was most disturbed to hear the news that there was a ‘mass brawl’ involving up to 25 teenagers in the Town centre on Monday, with a security guard attacked when he intervened. Birmingham Mail
Today I met with the Gracechurch Centre manager, Angela Henderson, and Julie Hopkins, the Head of Operations at CSO, the security company who look after the Gracechurch centre’s security and cleaning.
I was relieved to hear that the media reporting of the incident was overblown and that the security guard who broke up the fight was not injured at all.
However, I understand that many of my constituents are concerned about anti-social behaviour in the centre of our Town and would like to see the revival of our High Street.
Sutton Coldfield is very lucky to have the BID (Business Improvement District), on which Angela is now a Board Director.
BID is in its 11th year and is an important politically-backed approach in helping address problems seen across the whole country and notably in Sutton Coldfield- the effect of the digital economy on brick and mortar retail.
I would like to thank CSO for keeping Gracechurch clean, tidy and safe.
Above: Myself with CSO staff and Julie Hopkins, Head of Operations
Following my meeting in the Gracechurch Centre, and a general walk around to see the self evident challenge which the leader of the Royal Sutton Coldfield Town Council, our West Midlands Mayor, and I are grappling with on a very regular basis. I had the opportunity to update myself with Angela on recent events as well as some progress behind the scenes. I hope there will be further encouraging news before too long.
Above: Angela Henderson, manager of the Gracechurch Centre, and I
My Meeting with Easy Fundraising
This afternoon I also had a meeting with Becky Coleman and Ian Woodroffe from Easy Fundraising.
Ian set up Easy Fundraising over 20 years ago here in the Royal Town, raising an incredible £45 million for good causes since its inception. Easy Fundraising now has 90 people working for the company with a hub in London.
Easy Fundraising is an innovative app and the first of its kind ever which allows users to donate to a charity simply by shopping online via the app with various retailers. It costs nothing to use as the retailers donate to the chosen charities.
This year, Easy fundraising has chosen to sponsor the local charity Home-Start Birmingham North-West, for which I have the pleasure of being patron. Home-Start is an excellent local charity which helps parents build better lives and better futures for their children. I am very pleased to be involved with them.
Easy Fundraising has already donated resources to Home-Start so they can decorate their storage facility, donated Easter Eggs for all the families that Home-Start support and have said they will continue to donate on a monthly basis.
My meeting with Becky and Ian was a testament of the generosity and philanthropic nature of Sutton Coldfield, and the pioneering ideas that come out of our community.
You can find out how to use Easy Fundraising by clicking here: https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/support-a-good-cause/
Home-Start are looking for local volunteers to join them, if you are interested please email: Donna@homestartbnw.org.uk
Sunday Running Club
Sunday Running Club (also known as SRC) is celebrating its 1 year anniversary of 5am 5km runs. Sunday running club started up January 2nd 2022, only running on Sunday mornings at 9am. However the Club really took off in June when they started a 5am, with a daily figure of around 50 plus runners!
Sunday running club is not your average run club– they do not go for times or distance, they simply do this for mental and physical health reasons, and as a chance to make new friends while getting their daily steps in.
The Sunday Running Club are inviting you to come along on Saturday 17th June at 6.30am (tomorrow morning!) to get a feel of what this is like, there will be hot drinks and savoury snacks, and all ages and abilities are welcome.
I shall be making an early start to join them -not to run but to cheer on those who will be! I shall report back next week.
Ramada Hotel
Yesterday, the Home Office informed me that the Ramada is due to increase its capacity from 220 and 340 people as they work towards fewer hotels being used as asylum accommodation.
I am not happy about this as I believe it is simply not big enough to accommodate so many people at one time.
I am well aware how my constituents feel about the running of the Ramada Hotel as asylum accommodation, and so I have immediately contacted the Home Office with whom this decision rests to ask for details about the logic and reasons for this decision. It is not clear how the Home Office have reached such conclusions and what local factors were taken into account.
On the face of it, asylum seekers would be better placed in Birmingham, an urban and city environment where they would be better supported, rather than the Ramada in Sutton, where the resources for accommodating so many people are extremely sparse.
I will report back once a response has been provided to me.
PMQs
As you maybe aware, Birmingham City Council under Labour leadership is failing Sutton Coldfield and all those who live in Birmingham.
My colleague and parliamentary neighbour Gary Sambrook summed the situation up well in an exchange this week at Prime Minister’s Questions. Please see below the exchange between Gary and the Prime Minister-
Gary: “Recently, the independent regulator of social housing issued a notice against Birmingham City Council for the state of its social housing, with 23,000 homes not meeting the decent homes standard, more than 17,000 not receiving asbestos checks, more than 15,000 not having electrical safety checks and more than 1,000 not having fire risk assessments. Refreshingly, honestly and astonishingly, a leaked Labour memo put the blame at the heart of the Labour group in Birmingham. Does the Prime Minister agree that it is time for serious intervention in Birmingham to ensure that people have decent homes to live in?”
PM response: “The failings identified in Birmingham are wholly unacceptable. The regulator of social housing has made it clear that Birmingham must take immediate action to address those issues, and it will be monitoring the council’s progress closely. I understand that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has requested a meeting with Birmingham City Council and will be holding it to account.”
Foreign Office Questions
On Tuesday I answered questions from the House with my ministerial colleagues in the Foreign Office.
If you would like to watch it, you can do so following this link: https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/85b5a1eb-2f1b-49c5-9993-440883ae7ee0
I expressed our strong opposition to Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act. This is a deeply concerning issue for which I have received much correspondence from my constituents. The government has expressed its strong opposition to the legislation, at all levels, with the Government of Uganda. The criminalisation of LGBT+ persons threatens minority rights, and risks persecution and discrimination of people across Uganda who, as most of us would agree, should be free to love whom they wish.
This week I also went speak at their request to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Global LGBT+ Rights.
Hunger in East Africa
Later on I also took questions from the House about how the government is responding the food crisis in East Africa. This is an issue which I am very often discussing with churches and other organisations across the Royal Town.
The taxpayer has committed large sums to alleviate this worrying humanitarian issue, and Britain is giving extraordinary support and leadership across the Horn of Africa.
Privileges Committee Report on Boris Johnson
I think it is right to say something on this week’s events surrounding Boris Johnson. I was one of his earliest supporters but one of only two conservative MPs to call for Mr Johnson to go - publicly - in the House of Commons. I did so with great regret.
In addition, it was the Royal Town’s most senior Conservative association officers who early last year - unanimously - reached the conclusion that Mr Johnson no longer had their confidence.
Indeed Simon Ward, the leader of the Royal Sutton Coldfield Town Council, speaking in a personal capacity on BBC radio 4’s Today Programme the following morning, was one of the first senior Tories to express this lack of confidence publicly.
The Report of the Privileges committee is a powerful affirmation of the supremacy of Parliament over the Executive and the Government. The Report makes clear that Boris Johnson wilfully misled the House of Commons. Let me explain why this is no technical matter but an issue of grave importance - for every one of my constituents:
Our democracy - your democratic rights - depend on being able to rely on what we are all told from the Government Despatch box in the House of Commons being totally true. There can be no compromise with this. You and I must be confident that when a minister says something there, it is true.
If I say something as a back bencher which turns out to be inaccurate then someone can point it out and it can be corrected or I can correct it. Throughout my three periods as a Government minister, I have always understood that misleading the House as a minister is not acceptable. Indeed it is a very serious matter and must be corrected as swiftly as possible. Misleading deliberately or casually by a minister is a contempt of the House; it bears directly upon all our rights.
I am not a huge respecter of the Establishment but I accept that Parliament is the highest court in the land and the Privileges Committee the most senior committee of it. We as MPs set it up and we respect those who serve on it on our behalf. I know all 7 of its members; some of them very well indeed. We respect them because otherwise they would not be serving on it.
They are entitled to be protected from abuse and denigration as they carry out the task we have set them.
In delivering this report to Parliament I would like to thank them for their hard work, acknowledge their service on behalf of us all and, having consulted both colleagues and constituents, I will of course be supporting the recommendations of the committee in the House of Commons on Monday.
Trent Valley Line Summer Upgrade
From Saturday 15 July to Sunday 23 July, along with Sunday 9 and 30 July, Avanti West Coast will be running a reduced service on the West Coast Main Line as Network Rail carry out major upgrade work to the Trent Valley line. Customers making journeys in this period are strongly advised to plan ahead and check the Avanti West Coast website before travelling.
Royal Sutton Coldfield Community Games 2023
Outdoor Cinema in the Parade
A cinema will be opening in Sutton Coldfield this summer - a pop-up version in the Parade showing films and sporting events from Friday, July 14 to Sunday, July 16 with the films to be shown set to be announced nearer the time.
The pop-up venue will feature a large cinema screen, deckchairs to sit back in, a grass floor and white picket fence. And it will show a ‘selection of films and this year’s men’s and women’s Wimbledon tennis finals’, with those days featuring morning movies.
CSCS Course at Brandwood Centre
BUPA Foundation Green Community Grants
The BUPA Foundation have launched a Green Community Grants Fund nd are looking or grass-roots projects.
They are looking to support practical community projects which help both people AND planet health.
· Grants are available between £250 - £2,500
· Applications are welcome from all schools, registered charities and not-for-profit organisations across the UK and ROI
· The application window is open from 1 - 30 June.
Example projects could be:
· Improving green spaces for community activities to improve wellbeing
· Tree planting to improve air quality and biodiversity
· A school wanting to create an outdoor classroom or forest school
· A community group who’d like to create an allotment
· A voluntary organisation wanting to install sustainable equipment, such as a heat pump
Apply here: https://protect-eu.mimecast.com/s/4imACoVxqfrJRQJBu1-L5m?domain=groundwork.org.uk/
