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Chloe Smith, MP for Norwich North, will be running the latest seminar in the series of her 'Next Generation' business seminars. Begun last year in collaboration with City College and Howes Percival LLP, these meetings bring together Norwich students, entrepreneurs and established local firms to discuss the skills and business [...]

Chloe Smith, Member of Parliament for Norwich North, today commended the Government's Budget with its plan to reform the economy to support jobs and growth, and to take steps to help families with the cost of living – including an immediate cut in fuel duty. Furthermore the Budget confirmed as part [...]

Tomorrow is Budget day. With the economic recovery stalled and unemployment levels at a 17 year high, the country is already approaching rock bottom and the fears are that announcements in the Budget are going to make things even worse, not better. What we need is a Budget [...]

On 18 October 2010 Alan Johnson gave his first major speech as Shadow Chacellor at KPMG in central London ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review. The full text of the speech is below.    Check Against Delivery Alistair Darling took this country through the most devastating global economic crisis since the Great Depression. [...]

CARDIFF West MP, Kevin Brennan, is backing The Big Issue Cymru's recruitment drive to help the homeless and vulnerably housed in Cardiff.They are trying to increase awareness of their service which aims to help people back on their feet by offering a hand up and not a hand out."The Big [...]

I spent an hour on Friday at Walton Parish Hall at an exhibition that brought together many different local government, private sector and voluntary agencies that work together to help people in and around Aylesbury who can live independently but need some kind of support to do so. Their clients [...]

Delyn MP David Hanson is urging his constituents today to save money on their household gas and...

Delyn MP David Hanson is urging his constituents today to save money on their household gas and electricity bills and reduce their carbon emissions by taking up the energy efficiency measures that energy companies in the UK offer. Following an agreement with the government in September 2008, the major energy [...]

Of all the crudity and insensitivity of the Tory spending cuts, the proposed cuts to legal aid are among the most unnecessary, harsh and foolish.   Unnecessary because the planned savings of £350m out of a £2bn legal aid budget are just 0.3% of the Tories’ intended elimination of the structural [...]

Chloe Smith, Member of Parliament for Norwich North, today encouraged local people to tell the City Council what they think of sites throughout the city that could be used for housing and other development. The City Council has released its site allocations plan and its development management policies plan, for [...]

Last week we started work on the Localism Bill. This legislation underwrites the government approach. More matters should be settled locally, by the Borough Council or by groups of people concerned about local matters. National government and MPs will interfere less with all the local services, from education and social [...]

KEVIN Brennan MP and Shelter Cymru have held a meeting to discuss housing problems in Cardiff and how these issues could be resolved.On the agenda were Kevin's concerns about empty properties in Cardiff and the effect of the Government’s welfare reforms on the people of Cardiff West.“Housing issues are brought [...]

I've just received this letter from Edinburgh Council UNISON branch about their campaign to keep funding for employment programmes in Edinburgh. It looks like an important campaign to support, and you can find out how in the letter.SAVE EDINBURGH’S SERVICES FOR THE UNEMPLOYED!!The Scottish Government is planning to cut nearly [...]

Maria Miller, MP for Basingstoke, sent in her submission to Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s consultation on housing development on 14 January. The Council has been consulting people about the number of new homes that will be needed here in the future, and where to build them.   Maria said: “We have [...]

The Oldham East result wasn’t just good for Labour; it was spectacular.   Here’s why. Related posts on this blog:Oldham Chronicle Happily, my constituency paper, The Oldham Chronicle has picked up ...Oldham East’s not just about cuts, but truth and honesty Having just done a day's campaigning on the knocker in ... [...]

In the twelve months up to last October just 137 new homes were commenced by builders in my constituency. (NHBC statistics). This puts into context the big arguments underway  about how much new building the Council  should allow. Wokingham Borough is of course bigger than my constituency, but current build [...]

THIS year the Government's savage cuts will hit people even harder and as your local MP I am committed to stand up and oppose cuts which are being made on ideological grounds rather than in the national interests.These cuts could effect most of the people in Cardiff from those who [...]

No Happy New Year this time round, it’s going to be grim.   To illustrate this with some precision, I use my own constituency of Oldham as a microcosm for the country as a whole.   It is the 42nd most deprived local authority in the country and the 39th worst in [...]

It was only forty years ago that the US$ (and by extension £ sterling) became a 100 percent fiat currency.  Until then, government could not issue quite as much money as politicians and officials might have found convenient.  Rather, they [...]

On Tuesday I raised the issue of child poverty with Chancellor George Osborne during a Treasury debate in the House of Commons. A recent report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies shows that both relative and absolute poverty will increase every year up to 2014. This comes on top of [...]

I've received a copy of the latest submission from Friends of Inverleith Park against the proposed sell-off of part of the park for housing. It certainly seems a retrograde step to me - Inverleith Park is enjoyed by thousands of people from many parts of the city. I know that [...]